John the Baptist was the one spoken of by the Prophet Malachi, in chapter 4: 5 "Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes."
Many thought John the Baptist was Elijah, he looked very similar to what Elijah would have looked like. Before I go further, the account in Malachi says that God will send Elijah, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. I believe that the passage in Malachi is talking about the "Second Coming" of the Lord. I will address this in later posts on this blog. Since this is not the "Second Coming", I will stop here on this topic.
Jews and non Jews were coming to the Jordan River, confessing their sins and being baptized by John the Baptist. The Jews believed they were the "Chosen People" of God, and by birth-right they did not have to be baptized. The "religious leaders" believed that since they were teaching the people, they were without sin. This also will be looked into more detail later in this study.
Remember who John the Baptist's father was, Zechariah was of the house of Aaron; being a member of the High Priest rotation; gave him access to the Library in the Temple of Jerusalem, and access to all Scriptural Scrolls. Zechariah's job was to educate his son to all things the Messiah would do and what types of things He would say. John begins his ministry by saying "Repent for the Kingdom of God is near". John went on to say that "the One Coming after him will Baptize with the Holy Spirit and with Fire." Up to this time the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament came on people but left shortly, The Spirit did not stay. We will go into more detail on this later in this study. John the Baptist was teaching about an "Apocalyptic Messiah". Apocalyptic means pertaining to "End Times". If you are familiar with Old Testament Prophecy, there is no mention of when these things will take place or if some will be fulfilled before others. I will talk about this also later in this study.
John the Baptist drew huge crowds into the desert, to hear his words. The huge crowds, he was drawing, were getting the attention of not only religious leaders, but also Herod and Rome. The politicians were getting nervous at John's popularity. Israel and Rome were afraid of a large uprising. And wanted to defuse it before it could get started.
All through history, God has asked all of us to make a decision, to either make God the Lord of your life, or not. Have you made this decision yet?? If you are ready, talk to your local Church, or ask me. You can comment to this blog. I would love to pray for you, or talk to you.
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