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.

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

865. That 'he sent out a raven, and it went out going back and forth' means that falsities were still giving trouble is clear from the meaning of 'a raven' and from the meaning of 'going back and forth', dealt with in the paragraphs following this. Here the description is of the second state following temptation of the person who is to be regenerated, when the truths of faith start to appear as a first glimmer of light. This is the kind of state in which falsities are continually giving trouble. It is a state resembling the morning twilight when the obscurity of the night is still lingering on. That state is therefore meant here by 'the raven'. The falsities residing with a spiritual man, especially before he has been regenerated, are as thick patches of cloud, the reason being that he is incapable of knowing any truth of faith except from things that have been revealed in the Word where all things are stated in a general way. General statements there are nothing else than patches of cloud, for any one general statement embraces thousands of details, and each detail thousands of finer points. Those finer points constituting details are what light up the general statements. These have never been so revealed to mankind because they are both indescribable and also in-comprehensible, and so can neither be acknowledged nor believed. In fact they are contrary to the illusions of the senses which govern man, and to whose destruction he does not readily consent.

[2] The case is altogether different with the celestial man, who has perception from the Lord. In him details and their finer points can be implanted. Take, for example, the consideration that true marriage is a marriage of one man and one wife; and that such a marriage is representative of the heavenly marriage, and as a consequence can contain heavenly happiness, something that is not possible when one man has several wives. The spiritual man, who knows of this from the Word of the Lord, gives his assent to it and so acquires a conscience which dictates that being married to several wives is a sin. Beyond this his knowledge does not go. The celestial man however perceives thousands of details which so confirm the point that the thought of marriage to several makes him shudder. When the spiritual man's knowledge amounts to simply a general view of things, and his conscience is formed from that general view, and when the general statements of the Word are adapted to the illusions of the senses, it is clear that countless falsities which cannot be dispersed will attach themselves and worm their way in. These falsities are meant here by 'the raven that went out going back and forth'.