JOHN THE BAPTIST

We all know the story in Luke1 v5-25 that John was born from Elizabeth and Zachariah when they were both old and when Elizabeth was known to be barren.Angel Gabriel appeared to Zachariah as he was ministering,the angel said he will have a child who will be great in the sight of God and he will be filled with the Holy spirit from God.
The angel continued to say that John the Baptist will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elija.

The coming of John  the Baptist was also foretold by other previous prophets like Isaiah (Isaiah 40 v3).
His mission was to preach about repentance and to baptise,preparing people for the coming Messiah. However the priests and Levites did not know who exactly he was. They sent messengers to ask him. As he continued to grow in popularity, they wondered whether he was the Christ, Elija or the Prophet.
Surprisingly John the Baptist denied to all of the tittles suggested including that of a prophet.

PERCEPTIONS

Christ
The priests had a wrong perception of the Messiah or Christ. They thought he will come with power as a warrior to rescue them from the Romans, some bible scholars will argue with me that they had a right understanding of the Messiah because that is how he will appear. However that will be his second if not third coming when he will appear like that. The first coming  he came as a saviour, a sacrificial lamb,very calm and patient, the second time he will come to call his children to his banquet and only the righteous will go,the third time he will come as a mighty warrior, the Lion of Judah,he will judge the world of its sins.
Definitely John was not the Messiah because he did confessed freely that he was not the Christ.

Elija
They also thought that John could be Elija coming back again. However Angel Gabriel did not say that Elija will come back through somebody to prepare the way. The angel said; "And he will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elija."(Luke 1v17)
Definitely he was not Elija,only that his anointing and power was that similar to Elija.

The Prophet
They also wondered if he was the Prophet, John answered, no but Jesus said he was even more than a prophet because of his assignment of preparing a way for the  Messiah (himself ).

Why is John the Baptist denying to be The Prophet?
John the Baptist was indeed the Prophet foretold in Isaiah 40v3 and Malachi 3v1,
 was John contradicting then when he said no, am not the Prophet either? No,
John knew that people had a wrong perception of the Prophet to come,mainly about his role. They understand him to be so powerful that he will deliver them from the Roman rule. They took this from Deutronomy 18v15 because in this chapter, it was Moses telling the Israelites that God will rise up a prophet among you like me. If you recall, Moses delivered the Israelites from the oppression of Pharaoh, so up until the time of John the baptist, the Jews were still waiting for the prophet who will take the role like that of Moses, but if you read Deutronomy, you will understand that it refered to the Christ himself not John.  Therefore when John said no,am not the Prophet,he was responding to the literal meaning of it from the point view of the priests,  their perception and understanding of the coming prophet.

There are alot of things we can learn from John the Baptist, the following are the few among them;

FOCUS
He was a focused man of God who knew his job discription very well, there was a chance for him to put himself at the highest rank at the time when the Jews were confused about him, remember they were so desperate waiting for the prophet to deliver them from the hands of the Romans. He could have started misusing his popularity at this point.

BOLD
John the Baptist was very bold just like all other prophets before him. He boldly spoke to religious leaders who boasted to be sons of Abraham, he told them to repent and produce fruits like that of Abraham (Matthew 3v7-11)
He also spoke to Herode about his unlawful marriage to Herodias,his brother Philip's wife. That is when he was put in prison and later beheaded.

COMMITMENT
He was very committed to his job. This was not a paying job and nobody was there making sure that he reports for his duties every day, but we read that anyone who wanted baptism went to the wilderness and they got baptised.

HUMBLE
He realised that Jesus was above him when he came also to be baptised.  He tried to refuse because that was his master asking for baptism, until when Jesus explained to him that, it was to fulfil all the righteousness, that is when he accepted
This could have been a chance for him just to jump in and start confusing his followers, giving an impression that he is above Jesus since he came to him for baptism.

His followers at one point tried to divert him by attempting to bring in tension between themselves with Jesus disciples over ceremonial cleansing. After they had this argument about ceremonial cleansing with Jesus disciples, the disciples of John came to report a different story to John, they told him the man whom you baptised is also baptising and is gaining so many people (paraphrasing John 3v22)
John maintained his position by continuing to say that Jesus was  greater than him because he came from above,if anything they should all go to him because he will baptise them with the Holy spirit, i only baptise you with water for repentance,he said, and I must decrease so that he will increase, otherwise he is saying i can't compete with him.

Everyone has got an assignment here on earth, at the same time forces will come against us and even temptations as we gain popularity but if we are strong and focused we will overcome all of it.
We have seen even good leaders in our society lose focus because of popularity.
Be careful of circles of people who will surround you, praise you, yet they are destroying you by engaging you in an unnecessary fight, that is what John's disciples were trying to do.