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?
59-0412E §21
And Elijah knew that his God was real. And so he had brought it to a showdown, but then when the people had turned down the supernatural sign, "Oh, there was nothing to it. The lightning might have struck." Jezebel made her threats, and all of her gang. They didn't want to give up their social societies. And little old Elijah's heart was broke. Any minister knows what Monday morning is, after a hard day on Sunday. Compare that... You preacher's wives, you know how your husband is on Monday morning after he has prea...
Elijah
53-1018 §33
I've seen that tried a many time. I said, "You get one of the persons and let's bring the sick and afflicted and find out Who's God." God will be the same thing in this. If you people around this area here want an old fashion pouring down rain, you just get down on your knees, and all of you around here start calling out to God with a sincere heart. Burn up everything in your house, take that beer bottles out of the icebox, throw that deck of cards away. Take the children and take off to Sunday school next... And s...
Be certain of God
59-0125 §15
How that this little woman must have been of the caliber of Elijah, because usually your action shows what you are. And again, she had been chosen to entertain God's prophet. Remember, she was a Gentile, not a Jew. And the land was burning up. And no doubt that this little woman, being of that caliber, being of the believer type... For we see that God would not have called to her if she hadn't have been a worthy one to entertain God's prophet, for He would've never sent His prophet to a house that was unworthy. It...
Why?
62-0622E §33
They had to say that he didn't. He said, "Then listen to me." And he had the Word of the Lord. But the people had to admit that everything that he had said had been the Word of the Lord, and it had come to pass just as he said it would come to pass. But yet the people wanted to look like the rest of the people. That's the way it is today, that the churches are trying to pattern after the other churches. Christ is our pattern. So exactly that. Now they didn't want it. They didn't want the message. What if that king...
The Queen of Sheba
60-0401E §1
[Pastor introduces Brother Lamsa.] ... he speaks the language and can read the language and read the original documents in which the New Testament was written. So with him, it is so wonderful that he can read directly from the original script the very words that Jesus and the disciples spoke and wrote. He felt that these translations that we have are not always correct and true. And that's where the criticism comes in, because he criticizes the King James version, and some people think that St. Paul preached from t...