The one prominence you notice on the Israeli coast is the Carmel range pushing into the sea.
From Carmel’s heights on a clear day one can see the whole land. The Hebrew karmel means “vineyard,” and it was time for the Lord to tread out the vintage. Addressing the people, Elijah first makes an appeal to their wills. “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him” (1 Ki 18:21). Silence. He then appeals to their minds. Let the prophets of Baal prepare a bull as a sacrifice to their god. Elijah would do the same for Jehovah. “Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God who answers by fire, He is God” (v 24). The crowd replies, “It is well spoken.” The false prophets, forced to act, cry out to Baal from morning till noon. Elijah begins to mock them. Louder, fellows; obviously your god is indisposed. Frantic, they cut themselves with knives, screaming out into the silence. “But…no one answered” (v 29). Finally, at “the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” (when our Lord died), Elijah made an appeal to their hearts: “Come near to me” (v 30). Dismissing the man-made division in the land, he “took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes” (v 31) to rebuild the altar, placing the wood and sacrifice there. Then, so the people knew this was no sleight of hand, he dug a trench around and instructed that 12 barrels of water soak everything—that’s sea water, O doubter! Then he called on the Lord to show Himself by fire. Imagine the scene: the wicked prophets of Baal, the wayward people, and the wretched Ahab. Now if you were God, where would you send the fire? “Then the fire of the Lord fell” (v 38) on the sacrifice! As at Carmel, so at Calvary—“Mercy there was great, and grace was free!” (W.R. Newell).