The Prayer Life of Elijah (1 Kings 17:1)

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Elijah’s Prayer Life (1 Kings 17:1-2; James 5:17)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, March 22, 2026

How does the Bible speak of prayer?

The Bible is filled with promises about the power of prayer in the affairs of history. In the New Testament book of James, the author points out that Elijah, “a man like us,” prayed away the rain in Israel and then prayed it back as a way to confront a corrupt ruler. James concludes that prayer can “have great power and produce wonderful results” (James 5:16). John Calvin, famous for his views of predestination and God’s sovereignty, makes some remarkable statements about prayer based on James’s teaching. He says:

It was a notable event for God to put heaven, in some sense, under the control of Elijah’s prayers, to be obedient to his requests. By his prayers, Elijah kept heaven shut for two years and a half. Then he opened it, and made it suddenly pour with a great rain, from which we may see the miraculous power of prayer.332

Calvin is both bold and yet careful in his language. He says that prayer “in some sense” affected the weather conditions in Israel. Obviously, in the ultimate sense, God is in charge of everything that occurs—our prayers could not possibly wrest control of any part of the universe away from God. However, it is part of God’s goodness and appointment that he allows the world to be susceptible to our prayers. How he does this—how he maintains control of history and yet still makes human prayer and action responsible within history—is one of the most practical mysteries of the Bible. In Nehemiah 4, the Jews were rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem when they learned that they were going to be attacked by their enemies. What did they do? “We prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet the threat” (Neh 4:9). In Isaiah 38, King Hezekiah was dying and the prophet Isaiah told him so. Then Hezekiah prayed and the Lord replied, “I have heard your prayer … ‌I will add fifteen years to your life” (Is 38:5). And yet, when Isaiah brings this message to the king, he also tells him to prepare a hot dressing and apply it to the infection in order to recover (Is 38:21).[1]

Today, my theme is:

Notice, Elijah, a man of prayer.

  1. Who was Elijah?
    1. Between about 875-797 BC. Elijah and Elisha prophesied.
    2. Elijah and his successor Elisha figure prominently in 1 and 2 Kings as they prophesied against the wickedness of Ahab and Joram (also called Jehoram) of Israel. Elijah’s opposition to pagan worship also put him at odds with Jezebel, Ahab’s Phoenician wife, who supported hundreds of prophets of Baal and Asherah. Eventually Elisha sent someone to anoint Jehu, one of Joram’s commanders, to be the next king and to execute judgment on the entire family of Ahab.[2]
  2. Elijah prays.
    1. We’re going to look at one place where Elijah prays, and God provides.
    2. However, there are several instances in which God worked through Elijah’s prayers.
    3. 1 Kings 17:1: Elijah prophesied no rain, and it didn’t rain for 3 years and 6 months. 1 Kings 17:1 doesn’t use the verb “prayed,” but James 5:17 does.
    4. In 1 Kings 18:20ff, Elijah prays to the Lord and conquers the prophets of Baal. We see him pray in 1 Kings 18:36ff.
    5. 1 Kings 18:36–37 (ESV)
    6. 36 And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. 37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”
    7. Elijah had an active prayer life, but let’s return to the place he was introduced.
    8. 1 Kings 17:1 (ESV)
    9. Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”
    10. The autumn and spring rains and summer dew were necessities for the crops of Israel. The Lord had threatened to withhold these from the Land if His people turned from Him to serve other gods (Lv 26:18, 19; Dt 11:16, 17; 28:23, 24).
    11. Greear:
    12. I once heard prayer compared to the electricity running through the walls of a house. At any given point, there’s enough electricity there to power the refrigerator, heater, and TV, but until the plug makes contact with the socket, none of the power is usable.
    13. If we want our prayer to be difference-making, eternity-altering, and destiny-changing, it has to be Word-based, Spirit-led, unglamorous, slow, persistent, and audacious. As proof, look to the prophet Elijah.
    14. When Elijah declared that there would be no rain in 1 Kings 17, he wasn’t just picking a random target. He based that prayer on Deuteronomy 11:13–17, where God had said that if Israel worshiped idols he would shut up the heavens. Elijah literally prayed that into existence.
    15. And when Elijah declared that God would send rain again (in the following chapter), it was rooted in the second part of the promise in Deuteronomy—that if Israel repented, God would allow the rain to fall again.
    16. In both cases, Elijah was simply praying God’s promises back to him. We have even more promises than Elijah did. By one count, there are over 3,000 promises in Scripture, ready for us to unearth and pray back to God.
    17. Prayer isn’t a random wishlist we present to God; it’s the process of discovering what God wants to give us and asking him for it. So rather than just reading through the Bible, try praying through it.[3]
  3. The answer:
    1. James 5:17 (ESV)
    2. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth.
    3. 1 Kings 18:1 (ESV)
    4. After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.”
    5. The drought proved that Baal, the god of the rains and fertility, was impotent before the Lord.[4]
    6. The answer comes in 1 Kings 18:41-46.
    7. We will not read those verses, but you can turn there later and see the answer to Elijah’s prayer.
  4.  Applications:
    1. How are we doing with our prayer life?
    2. What can we learn from Elijah?
    3. Do we realize that God controls the weather?
    4. This may not mean you ask the Lord for a drought, but do we pray for the Lord’s help regarding the weather?
    5. Historically, people worked in agriculture and prayed for help with the weather.
    6. Do we recognize the sovereignty of God?
    7. Do we understand that God is faithful?
    8. The prayers regarding the weather were consistent with God’s prior words in Deut. 11:13-17.
    9. What do we need to pray about this week?
    10. Write it down.
    11. Let’s pray now.
    12. Silent prayer, and then the pastor closes.

332 Quoted in Horton, Calvin on the Christian Life, 159.

[1] Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (New York: Dutton, 2014), 223–224.

[2] Crossway Bibles, The ESV Study Bible (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008), 632.

[3] Greear; Four Ways to Pray that Move Heaven. August 19, 2024; Accessed: 02.15.2026

https://jdgreear.com/four-ways-to-pray-that-move-heaven/

 

[4] John F. MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur Study Bible: New American Standard Bible. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006), 1 Ki 17:1.

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