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 end; prayer was the God-ordained means. If Elijah had refused to pray, the rain would not have come then. God would not break His own order—He would wait for intercession or raise another to ask.
2) Scriptural Explanation
- God promised rain: “Go, show yourself to Ahab; and I will send rain” (1 Kings 18:1). Yet Elijah went up, bowed, and prayed repeatedly until the cloud appeared (1 Kings 18:42–45). James states the link plainly: “He prayed again, and the heaven gave rain” (James 5:17–18).
- The covenant required prayer when heaven was shut: “When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain… if they pray… then hear… and give rain” (1 Kings 8:35–36; see also 2 Chronicles 7:13–14). Elijah’s altar, the people’s turning, and his intercession fulfilled that order.
- God attaches promise to asking: “I will yet for this be enquired of… to do it for them” (Ezekiel 36:37). And, “You have not, because you ask not” (James 4:2).
- When there is no intercessor, judgment continues: “I sought for a man… to stand in the gap… but I found none. Therefore have I poured out my indignation” (Ezekiel 22:30–31).
3) Simple Clarifying Logic
- The decree set the destination (rain), but prayer was the switch that released it in time. Elijah’s travail did not change God’s will; it aligned earth with heaven.
- God doesn’t “refuse” His promise, but He refuses to bypass His Word. No prayer, no release at that moment. Delay is not denial; He honors the means He appointed.
- The sevenfold persistence shows that promises often require persevering faith against resistance until the sign appears.
4) Reinforcing Statement
Now notice—don’t stop at the promise; pray it through. The cloud appears to the one who stays on his knees.
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.
What hearest thou, Elijah?
59-0609 §21
And we find the prophet next then coming to the cave. I just wonder what kind of a vitamin that was in those cakes that he eat. It kept him going in good condition for forty days. Don't you imagine the scientists of this day would like to take one of those hoe cakes and examine it down at the laboratory to find out how many chemicals was in it, and how much vitamins, that could keep a man in good strength for forty days, walking? God's still got a laboratory full of them, and they're for journeying purposes. And wh...
Witnesses
53-0405E §21
Now, before you can be a witness, as I've said, you have to know something. You really have to be a witness. God had a witness in the Old Testament. One of His first witnesses was Noah. Noah was a witness because that he had heard the voice of God, in warning, telling him that there was coming a flood, and that he must build an ark. And preparation of this ark was to get ready at once, and he was to prepare a place for the saving of the people. All who would come in could come in. And he was God's witness. Now, the...
Elijah and the meal-offering
60-0310 §33
Now, when ... this little woman knowed that she had met all these requirements, and still God was silent, seemed like He didn't even care for her, He didn't care whether she lived or died. But all the time God was working. She didn't know about it, but God told Elijah. He dried up the brook, reached out His hand and stopped the brook from running. And Elijah said, "Lord, why did it stop?" He said, "I've commanded a widow woman to feed you." He had already commanded her---she didn't know it.
Elijah and the meal-offering
60-0310 §30
He tested the Hebrew children to see what kind of a reaction they'd have. They had confessed among the heathens that there was a living God, there was a Jehovah God, and that He was God of heaven and God of earth, and He held every soul in His hand. So God let them be tested. And they had met all the requirements. They had prayed up and got everything out of the way. And they would not bow down to the king's image. And he het the furnace seven times hotter than it ever was. And no doubt that Satan was trying to tel...
God has a Provided Way
62-0728 §51
Elijah, after he'd bawled out Jezebel so much... We need another one today. That's right. Bawled her out. How that we need one today! How the people... Oh, it's a disgrace, that ... what the people does today. It's just ... and all of them call themselves Christians. And some of these fashions that our modern women are wearing, some of these women with them waterhead haircuts, you know [blank spot]... I've seen leprosy but I've never seen anything like that. That woman had red and blue eyes, brown stuff all over he...