1 Kings 18:30

It is always good to wait patiently and let evil and error find their own level. Time will surely bring the truth to light. Error may dress itself ever so carefully in the respectable robes of age. But time will strip those robes off and show it in all its ugliness. Elijah felt this. So he could stand quietly by and let all the sand in Baal's hourglass run out before he began to show the pattern of a better way. It takes a very real grasp of divine principles to take this patient course. Had our prophet been shallow-minded or badly taught, he would have been in much greater haste. He would have rushed to display his system and stir up a storm of opposition against his opponents.

With the false prophets completely defeated, Elijah makes his third appeal to the people. He has spoken to their conscience, he has appealed to their reason, now he will speak to their hearts. He gathers them around him with the gracious invitation, "Come near to me." In response, all the people come near to him. In silence they watch the prophet repair the altar of the Lord. Having thrown down the altar of Baal, he sets up the altar of the Lord. It is not enough to expose what is false; the truth must be upheld.

First of all he called the people to him. He wanted them to examine his actions for themselves, and to make it impossible for them to doubt that the Lord had really acted.

Now it was Elijah's turn. He stood alone as the public witness — alone in front of timid people-pleasers, waverers between two opinions, and open, wicked rebels against God. His first act was to repair the altar of the Lord that was broken down. The state of the altar was proof of the state of the people.

"Come near to me," said Elijah to the people, who had been led astray so long like foolish sheep. There is a sound of tenderness in the prophet's words, like Joseph's invitation to his guilty and trembling brothers in Genesis 45:4. Elijah would soon lead the poor misguided people back to their patient and faithful God. In front of them he repaired the long-dishonoured altar of the Lord. He would teach them the true way of approach to God. If blessing was ever to be enjoyed in Israel again, it must be on the ground of the sacrifice God accepts.

The first thing he does is to "repair the altar of the Lord that was broken down." This was Israel's centre, and every true reformer turned his attention to it. Those who try a one-sided reformation may be content with merely throwing down what is false. They stop short of laying a sound base on which to build something new. But such a reformation will never last; it carries too much of the old leaven with it to be a testimony. The altar of Baal must not only be thrown down — the altar of the Lord must be set up.

Elijah says, "Come near to me" (v. 30). At that time he was God's representative on earth, which Christ was in perfection. If they stayed far off, Israel would not be able to witness what God was about to do... Outwardly the altar was broken down; that is to say, Israel as a whole no longer existed. But it was enough that one man should bear witness with his altar of twelve stones that what God established in the beginning would remain forever.