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.
Elijah
53-1018 §44
Listen, tell you what let's you and I do, let's do like Elijah. Let's get the things right. Let's get back to God. Then Elijah put his head down and he prayed. He said, "O God, send the rain." He went up. Gehazi come back and said, "It looks like brass." He went again, till he went the seventh time. And when he went the seventh time he said, "I see a cloud rising up out of the sea, just looks like a man's hand." And Elijah said, "I hear the sound of abundance of rain. Go tell Ahab to gird up his loin and go to Jezr...
Get the people to believe
52-0717 §5
May the Lord bless His Word. Now, Elijah was not an Angel; he was a man. And he had his ups-and-downs, and his troubles like we do. And he had his passions. The Bible said he was a man with like passions--subject to like passions as we are. He was just as apt to make a mistake as you are or I am. He's just as apt to do something wrong as you are or I am. But he prayed earnestly that it might not rain. And it rained not for the space of three years and six months. Think of that. God listened to a mortal's prayer. An...
Believing God
52-0224 §70
When Elijah had closed the heaven, that it rain not for the space of three years, Elijah did that, "let it rain not for three years and six months," and when he ducked his head between his little old skinny knees. Probably, if he'd come up to your door this morning, you'd run him away. Fur all out over his head like I don't know what, little old piece of sheepskin wrapped around him like this, and a cruse of oil and a stick, and here he come. That's all. And every time he set down there, put his knees down, head do...
Respects
61-1015E §51
God demands respects. You've got to have it. You ever get anything from God, you're going to respect God. And you must do it from your heart, the bottom of your heart. You must do it. But she disrespected God as she disrespected His prophet. Now, she knowed Elijah was a prophet. They didn't have anything in Israel could keep up with Elijah. Why, his visions and everything was perfect before God. But he condemned them. Mercy, yes! He'd get on every denomination, everything else. And everything that's called sin he c...
Why?
60-1126 §28
Why? Why would He send over to ask Beelzebub about anything? Is it because there is no God in Israel? Is it because there is no prophet down here? Is it because God has not made Hisself known in Israel? Is it because God has not provided a prophet to consult these things by? Then why would he send over there? He wanted to know why, and when the men returned back and brought the message, the king said, "What sort of a man was this?" He said, "He was hairy and had a piece of sheepskin, or leather wrapped around his l...