People think of Bible prophecy as an unfolding revelation of the plan of God, each revelation building upon the last, continually increasing our knowledge of God. And that's the way it looks from our perspective. But it's much more than that. Bible prophecy is like a tapestry that is intricately woven together from start to finish, every thread being in the right place from the start, building up a beautiful picture when viewed all together. For a tapestry to be created, a pattern must already exist in the weaver's mind. And that's the spirit in which the Bible is written. The Old Testament types of the Messiah and the sacrifices were not merely substitutes for the true, or a temporary thing to tide us over until the Messiah came. Rather, they were intricate pictures purposely engineered by God to reveal a beautiful picture of His Son. As it says in the book of Revelation, the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. And that's how we know the Bible is the Word of God. Because only God would be able to see the whole pattern of human history and mankind's redemption, and reveal it to us in such a way that transverses time itself.

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