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.
Be certain of God
59-0412A §15
And all that the pastors have give in, so they let the ... they'd had a social gospel, no doubt. And so, but there was one who didn't give in. There was a little, old prophet in the land in that day. He didn't bow down to any of their idols, for he knowed that Jehovah was a Holy God, and He required holiness, and cleanliness, and decency. For he knowed that Jehovah could not change. And if... Jehovah, to bring the children out of Israel, had to cleanse them and sanctify them. And when they walked disorderly accordi...
He cares. Do you care?
63-0721 §86
Notice, He cared when He called Elijah, by his Word, off from amongst the denominations. Looked like he'd have to starve to death, 'cause there'd be no tithe and offerings coming to him. But He so cared for Elijah, He didn't let him starve during the time he was obeying the Word of God. He commanded the ravens to feed him. He cared for Elijah because Elijah cared for Him, and He is the Word.
What hearest thou, Elijah?
59-0609 §30
Like a messenger one time, run. He heard something; he took out running. But when he got there, he had nothing to say when he got there. I think that's a whole lot the matter today. We've heard a lot of going on, then we took out running. Now, we don't know what we're running about. Let's wait till we hear from God, till God speaks to the heart, and we got a message, something that that still small voice has changed every fiber of us. If the churches, and the laymen, and the ministers, and the priests tonight would...
A Trial
64-0405 §27
Now He's going to call the first witness. Let's see who He's going to call. Noah. He's going to call Noah. Noah said, "In the days that I lived was a scientific age---way smarter than they are in this day. And the Lord God told me there was going to come rain down from heaven. It had never rained, remember, upon the earth. And they could take instruments and prove there was no rain up there. Remember, it never rained in them days. God watered the earth through irrigation. But He said, 'It's going to rain, and going...
God's covenant with Abraham
56-0428 §4
When the Shunammite woman, in the Bible, when Elijah had told her she was going to bear a son, and she did. And when the son was about twelve years old, one day out along up in the day, he was with his father in the harvest field, perhaps had a sunstroke, began to holler, "My head." A servant taken him to the house and put him on the lap of his mother, and along noontime, he died. And she had built a little place on the side of her house to entertain this prophet. So, she took him, and laid him on the bed of the pr...