What Is the Point of Prayer for Something to Happen If God Has Already Predetermined What Will Happen?
1) Direct Answer
Prayer is not pointless. God ordains both the end and the means. He sets the promise, and He commands the asking. When God predestines a thing, He also puts the burden to pray for that very thing. Prayer is the channel by which His will moves from His decree into our lives.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- “Your Father knows what things you have need of, before you ask Him. After this manner therefore pray…” (Matthew 6:8–10). He knows—yet He says, “Pray.” Prayer brings His will to earth.
- “I will yet for this be enquired of… to do it for them” (Ezekiel 36:37). Promise first; then God requires asking.
- Daniel read the promise of 70 years, then “set [his] face… to seek by prayer” (Daniel 9:2–3). The promise drove him to pray, and God acted.
- God said He would send rain (1 Kings 18:1), yet Elijah “prayed earnestly” until the cloud appeared (1 Kings 18:42–45). James uses this to teach us: “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16–18).
- “You have not, because you ask not” (James 4:2). That means some things remain unrealized if we refuse to ask.
- “If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14–15). Prayer accesses what God willed.
- “It is God who works in you both to will and to do” (Philippians 2:13). The very desire to pray is God moving you to cooperate with His purpose.
- The Spirit Himself “makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26–27). Prayer is God’s own Spirit praying God’s will through you.
- “If you abide in Me… ask what you will, and it shall be done” (John 15:7). Abiding aligns your asking with His intending.
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- Predestination is not fatalism. Fatalism says, “Nothing matters.” Scripture says, “Ask, seek, knock” (Matthew 7:7). The same God who ordains a harvest also ordains sowing and rain; so He ordains promises and prayer.
- Prayer doesn’t change God’s eternal mind; it applies God’s will to time, changes us, resists the enemy, and brings the promise into manifestation.
- If prayer were useless, why would Jesus command it and tie receiving to asking? Would He tell us to do a useless thing?
- God often attaches His promise to a condition: believe, repent, ask, persevere (Mark 11:24; Luke 18:1). Refusing the condition withholds the manifestation.
- When the deep in your heart calls to God (Psalm 42:7), it is because the Deep has already provided the answer. The call and the answer meet in prayer.
4) Reinforcing Statement
So pray the promise. Hold God to His Word. The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come” (Revelation 22:17). That’s partnership, not protest. Prayer is God’s appointed way for His will to be done in you: “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
Existing Follow-Up Answers
- Why Did Elijah Still Have to Travail So Earnestly in Prayer When God Was Going to Send the Rain Anyway? If He Did Not Pray, Would God Have Refused to?
1) Direct Answer Elijah travailed because God tied the promised rain to the prayer of faith and a restored covenant order. The promise set the en - Explain Why I Should Still Pray for a Thing, If God Is Already Going to Do It Regardless of Wether I Pray or Not?
1) Direct Answer You should pray because God made prayer the appointed path by which His will comes to pass in your life. He not only determines - Is It Then Possible If I Do Not Cooperate with God in Prayer for a Thing, to Thwart the Will of God from Happening Concerning That Thing?
1) Direct Answer No—you cannot overthrow God’s sovereign purpose. But yes—if you refuse to pray, you can forfeit or delay the manifestation for y
Ask a Follow-up Question
What did the Laodicean Church Age (our age) Angel (- messenger) Say about this?
Ranked passages from the local William Branham sermon and Church Age Book database. Relevance is relative, not a statement of doctrinal certainty.
God doesn't call man to judgement without warning
63-0724 §55
The prophet's only looking off and seeing something. He's talking about what he's looking at. He ain't thinking about here and what you look like now, he's looking what you're going to be. And when he speaks that, if it's in the Word of the Lord, it's already been spoke and there's nothing in the world can stop it (you see, that's right,) only God Himself. Notice, now we find that when... He speaks his vision, the prophet does. Now, sometimes he speaks good things, he speaks of your healing. All right, you might th...
Is there anything too hard for the Lord?
60-0328 §32
Now, I don't remember just where we left off the other night calling in this prayer cards. We had some left. We called some and then... [Someone speaks to Brother Branham from the floor.] Amen. Amen. May it be so. God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. Remember, the Holy Spirit that wrote this Book, the Holy Spirit that was in that dust down there at Sodom, is the same Holy Spirit that's in this building tonight. He can do the same things. Do you believe that? "If thou canst believe, all things are po...
Thou knowest all things
52-0716 §43
Now, last night when I come into the meeting and stood here, I felt a resentment somewhere. I kept looking around. I found it. I seen where it was coming, from two or three places. "Here is something again like [unclear words]." said, "mental telepathy." Said, "Whatever was written on the prayer card, what the patient had written on the prayer card, somebody looked at the prayer card, and then sent it to me, mental telepathy." Why, brother, sister, that has nothing at all to do with it. The patient might not have n...
Hear ye Him
56-0611 §47
You say, "Brother Branham, what do you say..." God bless you, little boy. "What does that mean?" Say anything to me, but the best thing that you could ever do, would say, "God bless you." If He blesses me, everything else is all right. God bless you, sister, dear. God bless you, sister. Certainly, that's my sincere prayer. God bless you, my sister. God bless you, sister dear. God bless you back there, sister. God bless you, brother. God bless you, sister. You, my brother. That's right. God bless you, sister. You br...
An Exposition Of The Seven Church Ages
CAB 3:E-63
A few moments ago I mentioned that John understood what it was to love God. That great apostle of love would certainly see it when the church began to lose that first love of God. In I John 5:3, he says, "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments (His Word)." One little deviation from that Word was a step away from Christ. People say they love God, they go to church, they even shout and rejoice and sing and have a great emotional time. But when it is all over, watch and see if they are in that WORD...