INTRODUCTIONGood evening brothers, today we have before us the task of briefly studying the life and ministry of John the Baptist and of adapting some lessons that I believe will have a profound impact on our personal lives and our ministry. This lesson will be divided into three basic parts as follows:1. Prophecies and childhood of John the Baptist2. The life and ministry of John the Baptist3. How does this apply to us? The Prophecies and Childhood of John the Baptist John the Baptist was a man ordained to usher in the soon coming and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ (Isaiah 40:3, Malachi 3:1, Matthew 3:3, 11:10, John 1 :23). The prophecy is clear from all these scriptures read and we can all agree: “John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for Jehovah. Isaiah 40:3 says that John must lead the way for YHWH (Jehovah). To Mal. 3:1, it is God who says, “he will make the way before me.” Yet we see that the fulfillment of these verses is found in the arrival of Jesus.” Although these prophecies were prophesied about 1000 years before the appearance of John the Baptist and Jesus, they still came true, and John also fulfilled the purpose of his birth, which is basically to herald and prepare the way for the Lord Jesus Christ. We must identify that his parents' faith could – Zechariah and Elizabeth, who the Bible identifies as devout Christians, believed and faithfully served the Lord until they were blessed with their only son – John, through the divine encounter between the angel Gabriel and Zechariah, it is amazing how God revealed the kind of child he would later become during his baptism when his father prophesied under the influence of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:5-25). The defining characteristic of John's ministry is to witness the mi...... middle of document ......Bible Literature, volume 99, number 3, September 1980, retrieved April 16, 2014 from http:/ /web .b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu.John W. Pryor, John the Baptist and Jesus: Tradition and Text in John 3:25, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, issue 66, June 1997, retrieved 16 April 2014 from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liberty.eduLamar Cope, Death of John the Baptist in the Gospel of Matthew, or, in the case of the confused conjunction, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38 n. October 4, 1976, retrieved April 16, 2014, from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu Morris Leon, The Gospel According to John, Erdmann Publishing, 1995. Morris M. Faierstein, Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first, Journal of Biblical Literature, 100 no 1 March 1981, retrieved April 16, 2014 from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.liberty.edu