Back to the Altar — Rebuild It and He Will Come — Again!
Title: DAY 4 — WHAT BRINGS GOD BACK
“So all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down”(1 Kings 18:30).
When the Rains Stopped
The atmosphere that fateful day was charged, though an eerie silence had engulfed Mount Carmel. In previous times this wooded mount was lush, green, and beautiful. It received plenty of rainfall and was considered a holy place, a place of blessing and fertility (Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, p. 144). But all that had changed. What used to be green was now burnt and bare, the result of a painful, three-and-a-half-year drought (1 Kings 17:1; 18:1; James 5:17). Here’s how Ellen White describes Israel at this time:
The earth is parched as if with fire. The scorching heat of the sun destroys what little vegetation has survived. Streams dry up, and lowing herds and bleating flocks wander hither and thither in distress. Once-flourishing fields have become like burning desert sands, a desolate waste. . . . Once-prosperous cities and villages have become places of mourning.
Hunger and thirst are telling upon man and beast with fearful mortality. Famine, with all its horror, comes closer and still closer. (Prophets and Kings, pp. 124, 125