Transparency is needed to sort things out. Before big change happens, God first reveals what’s really going on.

In the Book of Revelation - the last book of the Word - the apostle John describes a series of apocalyptic visions that he experienced during his exile on the Isle of Patmos, in the Aegean Sea.

In one of these visions, he saw four horsemen, the first riding a white horse, the second a red horse, the third a black, and the fourth - named Death - riding a pale horse. These "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" - oft-pictured - are described in Revelation 6:1-8.

What do these horses, and their riders, represent? What do they have to do with us, today? Watch as Curtis Childs and Jonathan Rose explore the hidden Bible meaning of the Four Horsemen in the Book of Revelation, in this video from the Swedenborg and Life Series, from the Swedenborg Foundation.

Plus, to go straight to the source, follow the links below to the places in "Apocalypse Revealed" where Swedenborg explained the inner meaning of this famous Bible story. A good place to start would be Apocalypse Revealed 298.

(Referências: Apocalypse Explained 315; Apocalypse Revealed 262-263, 301, 306, 314, 316, 320, 322-323)

4419. There was a spirit present with me who, when he lived in the world, had been very knowledgeable and on that account had believed that he was wiser than everyone else. This belief had led him to become infected with the evil of wishing, wherever he was, to take control of everything. He had been sent to me from a certain community to serve as their subordinate, that is, for the purpose of communication, 4403, and also to get rid of him because he proved to be a nuisance on account of his wanting to rule them by the use of his own intelligence. When he was with me I was allowed to talk to him about self-derived intelligence. I said that in the Christian world that kind of intelligence prevails to such an extent that all intelligence is believed by people to be self-derived, so that there is none which comes from God. They believe this even though they declare, when they speak from the doctrinal teachings of faith, that everything good and true comes from heaven and so from the Divine, including all intelligence since this involves understanding what is true and good. But when that spirit refused to pay any attention to these matters I said that it would be better if he went away as the sphere of his own intelligence was making me very uncomfortable. But because he was convinced that he was more intelligent than anybody else, he was unwilling to go.

[2] At that point he was shown by angels the nature of self-derived intelligence and the nature of intelligence derived from the Divine. Different kinds of light were used to do this, for matters like these are presented visually in the next life in wonderful ways by means of variegations of light. Self-derived intelligence was demonstrated by means of an inferior light which resembled a will-o'-the-wisp that had a band of darkness around it, and that spread only a little way from its centre. He was shown in addition that it was extinguished in an instant when some angelic community looked at it, just as a will-o'-the-wisp is extinguished on the arrival of the light of the sun or daylight. After this he was shown the nature of intelligence derived from the Divine, again by means of light. This time the light was brighter and more luminous than that of the sun at midday, spreading far and wide, and ending in the way sunlight does out in space. He was also told that intelligence and wisdom enter in from every side into the sphere of that light and cause truth and good to be perceived with an insight virtually unlimited. But this depends on the nature of the truth stemming from good.