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 and Elisha
54-0304 §25
Now, but when he went seven days---never fetched a compass those seven days, or packed for it---they got out into the wilderness there, and they'd run out of water. And they were about to die. And Jehoshaphat, being a righteous man, a God-fearing man, had the present sense to think, "Isn't there somebody somewhere who could pray a prayer of faith or something for us?" That's about the way of a Christian, isn't it? When he gets in trouble, he goes to thinking about prayer, or somebody who could help him. He said, "I...
Remembering the Lord
63-0122 §28
Elijah had a great thing to remember God by, when he had done his duty, exactly what God told him to do---to command the rain, and not even dew to fall until he'd call for it---went up and sat down by the brook Cherith in there. He stayed there for all this time. How he could remember that... How was he going to get food through these years? But God served him with the ravens---a God of heaven. No question. Where did the ravens get the food? We don't know, can't tell. The only thing that he just knowed ... he just...
What hearest thou, Elijah?
59-0412E §25
I'm so glad that there is a juniper tree; when we get all wore and tore up, we can go under that juniper tree and find spiritual vitamins to travel any kind of a trip. There he laid. Woke up feeling a little better, and he went forty days and forty nights. I'd imagine if there's a doctor listening in, wouldn't you like to know what kind of a vitamin He used that will keep a man on a corn cake and a glass of water for forty days and forty nights? That's the power of our God. Then he finds a cave way back in the wild...
Elijah
53-1018 §37
That's the reason God can't get a hold of hearts is because that men won't let Him. You got your life all choked up with something else. Some kind of an organization or, "that you must do this." "Well, they got a revival down at the Methodist or the Baptist. Hah, that's not my church. I don't go down there." Sure, you're a member of that church. Every man that's born again of the Spirit of God is a member of the Body of Christ. Amen. And every man that's born of the Spirit of God has that kind of a motive towards h...
Have not I sent thee?
62-0124 §75
Moses acted first, then he saw God's mighty miracles. When God told him to walk towards the sea, he had to go towards the sea to see the mighty miracles. Whatever he did, he had to obey God to see God's mighty miracles. That's what we have to do. Elijah, when he went out there on top of the mountain, called them up there, said, "Let's see who's going to be God. Let the God that answers by fire be God," 'cause he knowed that God is a consuming fire. "Let the God that's got fire, answer." They said, "That's a good id...