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.

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

4327. General and involuntary sensory activity like this exists today with those who are governed by the good and truth of faith. But with those who are subject to evil and therefore to falsity, no general sensory activity that is involuntary takes place any longer, neither in the face, nor in their speech, nor in their gestures. Instead there is a voluntary kind which is an imitation of the involuntary - or natural as it is called - and which they have made such by regular use or from habit since early childhood. What that voluntary kind of it with them is like was demonstrated by means of influx that was silent and cold into the whole face, into the right side as well as the left; from there it reached towards the eyes and extended from the left eye into the face. What was meant by this series of events was that the fibres of the cerebrum have intruded and taken control of the fibres of the cerebellum, and as a result that which is unauthentic, simulative, imitative, and fraudulent reigns inwardly, while sincerity and goodness are seen outwardly. Its reaching towards the left eye, and from there into the face also, meant that evil was the end they had in view and that they employed the understanding part of the mind to achieve their end, for the left eye means the understanding part.

[2] These at the present day are the ones who for the most part constitute general and involuntary sensory activity. In ancient times however such people were the most heavenly of all, but at the present day they are the most infamous of all, most especially those from the Christian world. They are many in number and they present themselves beneath the rear of the head and at the back, where I have seen and perceived them many times. For those who relate at the present day to that sensory activity are ones who think deceitfully and devise evil against the neighbour. They present a friendly, indeed a very friendly, countenance, and their gestures too are such. They also speak agreeably as though they excelled everyone else in charity, and yet they are most bitter enemies not only of any person with whom they have contact but also of the human race. Their thoughts have been communicated to me, and these were unmentionable and abominable, full of ideas of cruelty and butchery.