The Resurrection Elixir
by Starr Daily
Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.
Now we’re all here. We’re not all there. I think the Book of Acts essentially is a witnessing story. And that everyone here has a witness. And that witness is not given. And there is great failure in the soul of that person who fails to give it.
Jesus is reported in the Gospel of John as being in every man’s life. And that this life is the light of all men. Every man that cometh into the world hath this light and this life and therefore can witness everyone.
I’ve never been in a place where there wasn’t a witness. You can go to the bottom of human degradation and you find the witness there. He may not believe he’s witnessing, but he’ll be witnessing if you have ears to hear and eyes to see.
I know this council ring will be witnessing. And the leaders will be witnessing. And all the helpers here will be witnessing. And all the rest should be witnessing one to another. You don’t need any counsellor except the one counsellor.
If I counselled with you, it would probably be out of my mind. And nothing would ever come of it. But when you go to the counsellor of all counsellors, He speaks to that inner part of you which never makes a mistake.
All problems are solved in Him. All difficulties, all fears are erased in Him. If you are afraid or haven’t come to a conviction about immortal life, then somehow or other you have not come in contact with Him who is the resurrection and the life.
If you have not been so illumined that you have passed beyond the consciousness of sin, then there is need for development here in the inner planes. While we are in the world, we are in the consciousness and in the orbit of the devil, Satan and Lucifer. But in illumination, these things all pass away. They have no reality because they are bad and God is good. He is the only reality.
So we can witness to the good. You can’t find any bad in light. And you can’t find any bad in redemptive love. You can’t find any bad in redemptive life. There isn’t any such thing. There isn’t any such thing. And when we get that illumination that puts us over and beyond this carnal orbit of things, these concepts and convictions and ideas and opinion do not exist. And that’s what we want to get. Well, I want to do some witnessing.
And I think that witnessing is far greater than preaching. I was up at our home in the desert, sitting out in a closed-in patio, and a bearded man, a grizzly-looking man, whose clothing was a network of patches, and his shoes decayed shreds of leather, came up in an old rattle-trap car.
And I had been praying for some light on a certain subject, and he came. I wonder if Jesus came dressed like that, in disguise, and He may well do it, if anybody on earth would recognize Him. I wrote a ballad about that after I’d met this old fellow.
And Jesus came dressed as a tramp. And He came on Easter, on Easter Eve, in this small town. And it was during a financial panic. Everybody seemed to be broke. And so the people in this town had passed a kind of a law to discourage the hobos coming through by refusing to give them anything to eat.
And Jesus came, and it was a miserably cold day. And He went from door to door, and… He was refused. Some spoke a kindly word. Finally, He came to a vaulted door at church in the little town. He heard the choir singing in there, the master I adore.
And He went in. And the music stopped. And the people stared. And He said, “I only want a little warmth. I’m sorry if perchance I’ve disturbed you.” And He went out. And finally, after He had finished the last house, He wandered like a slave that had been mentally hurt. Down the railroad track, where all the riffraff go.
And as He trudged along, His clothing wet and cold, He heard a voice from somewhere near hailing Him. And He turned and saw a little lean-to shack made over by the railroad and a fire by it. And this tramp hailed Him and called Him. And He went over. And there was a can of stew on the fire.
And he invited Him in and said, “Sit down. Don’t have much, but you’re looking like a ghost. You look hungry.” And Jesus ate. And enjoyed his society. And the sleeping room was so narrow that there was hardly room for one.
But this hobo made room for the Lord. And He found one on earth worthy of His death. I wonder, I wonder if He would come dressed in such a disguise that anyone would see Him or know Him or recognize Him. He came to His own and they knew Him not.
I wonder if we know Him now. Yes, lots of people know Him. I want to talk about my four angels this morning. I’m not trying to say that men are not as intuitive as women. But I say they’re more reserved.
A man is not likely to come up to me and say, “Brother, you don’t have any love in your heart. I’m going to pray for you.” He wouldn’t do that for one reason or another, but a lady wouldn’t mind.
I had a letter from a dear friend of mine down in Texas. Said one of the reasons why she didn’t like to go to CFO was because someone was always praying for her. A minister told me he had a CFO member in his congregation and every week she would come to him and let him know that she was going to pray that he had more power in his Sunday morning sermon. And he said he resisted it and resented it until he got ulcers.
And he was trying to figure out an organized sermon on Saturday afternoon. And he could hardly even find a text for it. He was so mad. Finally, the thought came to him, the Lord spoke to him and said, “The only way you’ll get rid of this woman is to love her and pray for her.”
And so he thought that was from on high. He began to pray for love. And finally, he said he got some. And then he said he’d know how powerful his prayer was, but at least he said what. And she was in the congregation the next Sunday morning. And he said he actually gave a powerful sermon and knew it was powerful himself.
And he said after that he, instead of letting her come to him, he always got in touch with her on the phone, said, “Pray for me. I’m trying to, beginning to get my sermons organized.” And she would pray for him and he became a very effective preacher.
He got rid of her. I was sitting in the lobby of a CFO last summer. And I was a little wistful and sad. And it was the beginning of the camp. And these opening days and nights are a little difficult.
And I was sitting there and I knew I didn’t have very much love in my heart. And no one came around or even looked or said hello or anything else. I got full of self-pity about that. laughter Finally a lady came up, sat down and she said, “It’s come to me, God spoke to me and told me to tell you, as our leader, that you ought to love more.” laughter Well, I said, “Only God could have sent you.” laughter “Because that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to think about.” laughter And I said, “Well, now you pray. And you pray mighty hard about that.” So we bowed her head and she prayed. And as she prayed, I felt a great sweeping wave of the grand feeling coming in and through me. Now I could have, if I’d have been steeped in the carnal mind, laughter I could have said, “You’re meddling.” laughter But no, I was in great need for that thing. And God answers our need through people very often.
He brought an angel in there. If it had been left up to Him to get a man, I don’t believe He could have found one. laughter But she obeyed. And after I was in this great glow, I was in a great sense of wonder. And I said to myself, “Isn’t it wonderful to go back across a chasm of years to your childhood when you had wonder about everything? To look out there and not feel a sense of wonder. An amazing thing.”
Plato said that wonder is the beginning of wisdom. And it certainly is. And as we grow up, and as we increasingly become in contact with the rough edges of this life here on earth, that childlike sense of wonder that we once had fades away. And our lives become dull habits. Routine habits. And the thing that is in the child, all those wonderful gifts that is in the child pass away from us. And you never get through wondering. And you never get through wondering. When that lady gave that prayer and I had that experience, I wondered about it. I was amazed. I was astonished. I was astonished. And in the scriptures, in the New Testament, those disciples were always filled with wonder. They were amazed at everything that Jesus did.
He was doing all these miracles all the time. And every time that He did one, and they saw that, they were astonished. And amazed. It filled them with wonder. It looks as though, after they had seen a few hundred of these marvelous things that Jesus did, that they would have stopped being amazed. But no. Not as long as He was with them. And then after He left, all through the book of Acts, they were amazed at these things. And so I said to myself, “Well, why should I be astonished?
Why should I be amazed? Wasn’t I sitting here, in a very awkward, inadequate way, trying to pray for the very thing that I needed? And couldn’t pray and didn’t pray. But that God answered the feeble effort that I was making by sending this little angel up to me. And when I wouldn’t pray for myself, He sent one who would pray for me.”
Isn’t that the way He does it? Oftentimes our prayers are answered through someone else, and sometimes a very humble person. Now I was sitting in that patio, and this old grizzly, looked like a prospector, came in and stopped his old jalopy, and he had a bottle in his hand. Looked like a whiskey bottle.
He came in and sat down and he said, “Did you ever hear of Geritol?” “Geritol?” I said, “Yes, I’ve seen that on the TV.” “Well,” he said, “I’ve got something better.” He said, “Geritol has alcohol in it. Yet mine doesn’t have it. I call mine a spring tonic.”
He said, “Mine is a resurrection elixir. And it’s only a dollar.” Well, I looked like he needed a dollar. And I said, “Well, what’s in it?” Didn’t look very sanitary. And he said, “Well,” he said, “first, you know, the desert’s all in bloom.” I said, “Yes, I’ve noticed that once.” I hadn’t paid any particular attention to it. You ought to observe such things.
I said, “Now I believe someone has come from the Lord. Talk to me about resurrection.” “Everything is budding,” he said. “All these flowers. Is that right, Tony? This is the resurrection time. All this was dead. Just a month ago, all this was dead. Now it’s alive again. That’s what my tonic will do for you.”
Well, I said, “What’s in it?” Well, he said, “There’s some pulverized jansane roots in it.” And he said, “There’s some desert sage in it. I pulverized it myself.” And he said, “There’s some garlic oil in it.” And oh, there were several other things that he gathered out of the desert that he put in it. And I took a bottle.
I was rejuvenated. I was rejuvenated. So much so that I took it down the street and gave it to my neighbor. Let him get a little bit. But you know, that wasn’t what he came there for. He came there to give me not a verbal lesson, but a picturized lesson on the resurrection. It was a spring tonic. It was a spring tonic. But what he told me was out there in the desert, if I had eyes to see, I could see. And if I had ears that were tuned in, I could hear what was going on out there, resurrection life. Can you have a question, please? Yes, ma’am. Mr. Marlowe, over you for the morning. Here, Mr. S. Thank you, dear. Thank you, darling. Thank you, darling. Angel. She’s an angel.
What kind of a parable can we make out of that bus? Well, I was down in another CFO. I’m not having trouble with my legs. I went down the bank, the slope, sat on a bench, and I was sunning my legs in the sun.
And pretty soon, the lady came down. She said, “I just came from the prayer room. And it came to me in the prayer room to look you up. And pray for your legs.” I wondered if she had seen me hobbling around.
And I was amazed that that was the very thing that I needed prayer for. And that it was the thing I was exposing my legs to the sun to try to get healing out of the solar sun instead of out of the sun of righteousness.
And I told her, I said, “I would appreciate it very much if you would lay your hands on my knees. And pray for my legs. Because they are sore. From the knees clear down to my feet.” And she put her hands on my knees.
And prayed. And I began to feel release. And I began to feel release from that pain. I wasn’t released from the difficulty. But for the time being, the terrific suffering that I was having in those legs was released. And it came to me that I should cut down on coffee in the camp. Drinking a lot of coffee. And drink more water.
And to cut down on the starches that we had in that diet there. And I did. And I got through that camp pretty good shape. So that came to me. I got momentary relief through her prayer. And then I got a revelation as to how to handle that diet.
And I believe that diet is still working. I have lost 20 pounds. And I needed to lose it. I lost it on a diet, kind of diet I am using now. And I am old. I have a mixer. And I get this brewer’s yeast.
And I get desiccated liver. And I get wheat germ. And I get blackstrap molasses. Tiger. And then I get an avocado. And I put that in. And an egg. And then I put in some pineapple juice. And I turn the thing on. Boy, that’s wonderful. That’s a wonderful meal. That’s a wonderful meal. Almost impossible for me to eat bread while eating that. Then I, of course, go to the health store and get these garlic pearls they call. And I’ve been reading up on that. And they say that that was the only medicine they had in ancient times. And nobody was sick.
It is a perfect cure for high blood pressure. Blood pressure will go down almost like magic. I had high blood pressure after leaving the Ohio camp and went down to Virginia and had a stroke. And someone told me down there, “Get garlic. Get garlic.” I said, “It’s so offensive.” And.
This lady said, “No, you can get it at the health store in pearl. There’s no odor to it.” I haven’t had any more strokes. And the blood pressure has been normal. That was a… all through antiquity and clear up into semi-modern times. The peasants in Europe, and in the Near East, are practically… lived, kept healthy, on garlic and honey.
So I use honey. And I follow a little bit that folk medicine man, that folk doctor up in Vermont. At vinegar and honey. And I’m very diligent on taking that and keep losing weight. Good way to reduce.
Well, that was something, wasn’t it? That lady, that lady prayed for my legs. And I got that wonderful result. And I knew that joy, that the manifestation of joy was humor. And I didn’t have much there. And she seemed to have a lot. She sparkled. Her eyes twinkled. She had a lot of humor. And we were having a blessing service. And sitting in chairs. And then the blessers came along behind.
And when I felt a pair of hands on my head, I heard her voice. She leaned over, whispered in the ear, “I’m going to ask for more joy for you.” I said, “Hurry.” And she held up that line.
It seemed that she kept her hand on my head long time. And as she did, I began to feel a joy coming. And some jokes coming. I remember one of them I’d read. So this one was about two young college people who’d married. Both of them were students of psychology.
And the girl had gone greatly into germ, studied germs. So she had made up her mind, if she ever had a… there’d never be any germs get her out. And so her husband went along with her. He didn’t quite believe in it, but he went along with her. And finally, as they say in the true stories, the baby came.
When the baby came, why she got sterilized. Claws. And treated the doorknob several times a day. And at the meals, treated the knives and forks and spoons and the plates. And was sure that no germs were going get around. Nothing could touch that baby that wasn’t sterile.
And finally the baby, she said to her husband, “I believe Junior’s cutting a tooth. I’d like to see it.” Well, he said, “Why don’t you do like my mother did? She put her finger in. Filled it.” And he looked at his wife. And she was chalk white. Like a ghost. And then he added, “But mother always boiled her finger before.”
She also, when visitors came to see the baby, she had a great supply of surgical masks. She gave… Well, this dear one, who’s a leader in the CF Temple, prayed for joy. And I experienced, while she was praying, and after that, so long as that camp lasted.
I just went day and night in that perpetual feeling of joy all the time. I wasn’t always going around grinning, trying to put on joy. But it was there. It was just flowing like that. And it seemed to me that when we’d be at the table eating or anything, or sitting in a little group, there’d always be something come up that would be a manifestation of joy. There was a man and his wife. They were very, he was very sour. And I felt that he must be on some diet different than mine.
And he and his wife would sit at the table and never say a word. Just sit there. And when the food came, they’d eat. And they’d get up and growl. And I was in a little group. And he and his wife came up, sat down and joined in. When they did die, this joy just began to bubble. And I’m sure I was just wishing it over to him. And pretty soon he told a joke.
And everybody laughed. And after that he was just full of jokes. I got a lot of them. Most of them I couldn’t tell from the platform. But he was just full of them. And he and his wife at the table after that were just buzzing. They’d always get at the table where there were others. And they’d just take over. She gave me that joy through prayer. Prayer.
Prayer is the most powerful thing in this world. Every prayer is answered. Even prayers of repetition. Not in a big way. But they’re answered. Any little lifting of the heart of the Lord is answered. And we keep His name alive in the world, even by profanity.
And St. Paul, and St. Paul honors and recognizes that fact. That if we’re only using His name by pretense, His name is being broadcast. That’s what St. Paul says in Philippians. Profanity. Profanity. It declares His name more than anything else.
Some people from up New England went down through these Smoky Mountains. They wanted to go to. They wanted to go. Help to Somerville. deformity in the vida. The people sitting on a rail fence. They… He asked him where Somerville was. It was only three miles from where he was sitting. And he said he didn’t know. And they asked him where Daleville was. He said, “I reckon I don’t know.” That was only about six miles from where he was.
And the man said, “Do you know George Washington?” “I reckon I don’t. Don’t reckon I’ve ever heard of him.” “Well, do you ever hear of Abraham Lincoln?” “I reckon I’ve never heard of him either.” “Well,” he said, “did you ever hear of God?”
He says, “Is His name dammit?” That’s the only name he’d ever heard of Him. Now give your witness. Witness one to another. The light shineth in us. His life is our life. And when you declare this life and this light, it’s true. It’s absolutely true altogether.
You don’t have to have any manifestation of it. You’re simply declaring a truth. And when you salute the Christ in another person, you don’t have to have any experience about it. You’re simply declaring that which is true. Because the Christ is indwelling every human being on earth. And when you declare that to another human being, you’re witnessing to Christ.
Witness to Him especially in troubles. And witness to Him in sorrow and in suffering. He’s there. And after all is said and done, this little life here on this planet is nothing but the tick of an astronomical clock.
There’s only one reason for our being here, and that’s to be a witness to Christ. A question? Huh? Oh, you didn’t hear… Don’t hear. She can’t hear you very well. Your voice isn’t carrying back there, she said. Well, maybe I’d better get up there.
No, I wouldn’t… couldn’t do that, could I? No, I’m going to tell you about a man years and years ago, who had a marvelous experience. He was a man who lived in my hometown, a county seat town of about 5,000 souls or six.
And his name was Mr. Crawford. And all the parents around the town used Mr. Crawford as an example for their children. Mr. Crawford had the reputation of being the most saintly man in the town. He had a finance business and he borrowed money, took money and invested it. And he had the reputation of being absolutely honest.
He was a great church worker. He taught a men’s Bible class. And had his finger in all the civic things that were going on in the town. He had no bad habits that anyone knew of. He didn’t drink. He didn’t smoke. He didn’t go around after women. He didn’t gamble. It seemed as though he had a perfect character.
Then all of a sudden, quite suddenly, like judgment comes upon us suddenly, all of the things that he had been doing piled in upon him all at once. He had been making bad speculations of other people’s money. And most of them were not people of means, but people of small means.
And it was suddenly discovered that he was completely bankrupt. And all the money that the people had turned over to him and he had invested and gambled, speculated with. Some of them, their life savings had been in his hands and it was all gone.
He had a wife and two teenage children, a boy and a girl. And all the disgrace and shame fell down upon them and down upon him. And the impact upon his health was so great that he practically lost his health overnight in jail.
He didn’t stand trial. He pleaded guilty. While he was in jail, my father wrote to me. I was in the jail, in the prison too. Penitentiary while he was in the county jail. My father wrote to me and he said, “Mr. Crawford will be entering upon a sentence there where you are pretty soon.
Many people have lost their money by trusting it to him. And I have lost $5,000 with him.” And of course, $5,000 from those days, that was a fortune. I said, “If you get a chance at all.” This was after my experience in solitary confinement.
“If you get a chance at all, try to do something that will help him. Because basically at the center of his life, he is a saint. This one weakness is all he had. It happened to be a bad one and involving many people.”
Mr. Crawford was brought in on a stretcher suffering with a half-dead pancreas, with asthma, with incipient dropsy, and almost ready to die. It ulcerated stomach from this terrible, emotional worry, sorrow. He was brought into the hospital, and I was a night nurse in the hospital.
And they put him to bed. And I thanked the Lord that Father’s prayer was going to be answered. That he was placed right in the right position where I could get to him. And for quite a while, for two or three weeks, I just went in and out of his room, howled with him a little bit.
I swished the love all around in there, just let it exude out, fill the room, and let him live in it. Finally, one day, someone gave me a little piece of metal that had an emblem on it. Whether it was a sacred emblem or not, I don’t know. It had some kind of an emblem on each side. He had picked it up out in the yard.
I went in and pulled up a chair beside Mr. Crawford’s bed. I said, “Mr. Crawford, let me have your hand.” He put out his hand. I put that little piece of metal in his hand and closed his hand over it.
I said, “Don’t you let that get out of your grasp. Day, hour, night. You hold that. That is going to bring about one of the greatest changes in your life that you’ve ever dreamed of.” And his hand tightened. And his hand tightened, his faith quickened.
The next day I went back in and he raised that hand clutching that piece of metal. And he said, “I’ll pay back every cent.” And he said it three times. I said, “Mr. Crawford, you will pay back every cent.
And you will do it before you leave this place. And you will leave here in perfect health.” He clutched that metal. And as he clutched it, his faith just kept growing and growing and growing. Now you being Christians, you might just… But you see, I didn’t know anything about Christianity.
I hadn’t been ruined yet. I hadn’t ripped my faith away. So I could take long chances. All I wanted was faith. And that’s what I saw growing. And faith by this means was just as good as it came from God.
Wasn’t long after that till they brought another man in who was an inventor. Thank you. Thank you. And last and final call for the morning, Mr. Rush and Western Drive. All aboard, please. Last call. That’s the altar call.
This man came in who was an inventor and no one believed in him. He was always inventing something. He had dried out on paper and tried to get someone to listen. No one paid any attention to him. They thought he was a crackpot. And he was brought in to the hospital for something or other.
I said, “Joe, have you invented anything lately?” He said, “Yes.” He says, “I have.” I said, “What is it?” He said, “I’ve invented a burglar-proof window.” I said, “That’s good. That’s really something. No one would know more about that than you.
You’re a three-time loser on it. And you ought to be able to make a perfect window.” And I said, “I believe I can get you some help. There’s a financier in the hospital. He doesn’t have any money. But I think that he will know where he might get in contact with someone and convince him about your burglar-proof window.”
So I got to Mr. Crawford and told him about that man in there who had invented this burglar-proof window. And I wanted to know if he thought that he knew anyone on the outside who would finance a patent and see what could be done about this burglar-proof window.
And he said, “I do.” And he started correspondence with some people he knew. The upshot of the thing was, before either one of them was out, the patent was gained, and a stamping company, a big stamping company, had taken the patents and were producing this steel-type burglar-proof window. And both of them were put out on parole to help the process of… God works in mysterious ways to bring about His witness. Is there anything impossible with Him? If there is, there’s something wrong with faith.
The Bible doesn’t say that there’s anything that’s impossible with God. And anything that quickens our faith is good. There was a Negro man in there with dropsy and asthma. And he believed in my fan. I had a bamboo fan. He didn’t believe in me, but he believed in the fan.
Whenever he would get a spell coming on, he’d get almost frightened out of his wits. And he would rush out into the corridor and start coughing and hacking and calling, and I’d run to him and run to my room and get the fan. And as I came running toward him with the fan, I’d stop coughing and stop talking. And his breathing would start again. What did it? Nothing but faith. If you had faith in the fan, what’s the matter with that?
What we need is faith, and all this faith comes from God. It’s a gift of the Holy Spirit. A gift of the Holy Spirit. We can’t get any faith for wickedness unless it comes from the Holy Spirit. It’s just misused, that’s all.
All the faith we have that is wicked is a gift of God. And we have perfect free will to misuse it or use it correctly. And nearly always, as far as the world is concerned right now, we’re misusing it.
The United States is in a transitional period of the most intense kind that has occurred since the fall of the Roman Empire. And this is all over the world. It’s spreading all over the world. The wrecking crew is at work everywhere. It’s a mass psychology that is taking place in every country. And it is tearing down. I call them the wrecking crew. When everything is wrecked that should be wrecked, it will open the way for the Savior’s second coming.
“Not one stone,” He said, “will be left one upon another of this temple.” All that can be torn down and all that can be wrecked will be torn down and wrecked in this century. And before this century is over, I am firmly convinced that every knee will bend and every head will bow at that majesty appearing in the sky.
He will come again. The Bible says it and the Bible is true altogether. And what we want to do is to be on the redemptive crew. That’s what we are in CFO. We want to be witnesses. Let the wrecking crew wreck. You can’t do anything about that. That’s all going to take place. Nature is going to be in revolt. Everything is going to be in revolt. And why watch it on TV and why look at it on… hear it on radio? Why give a moment’s time to these trifles? Our only business is to get in union with Christ and stay in union with Christ. Keep our attention fixed on Him because whatever gets our attention gets us.
And we get all worked up about this stuff that’s on television. About all these moms. About all this violence that’s going on. And get our attention fixed on that, it can go like a squirrel in a cage 24 hours a day. And we can discover that we’re so adjusted to this type of thing that we can’t even stop a moment to read the Bible. Or to say a prayer. That isn’t our business. Our business is to be witnessing for Christ.
Let the dead past bury its dead. When these things… when you hear of these things and these things come upon them… then go to the only place of security there is and that’s in God. And we can grow up… and we can find those who are receptive and responsive.
And there are in the United States a multitude of young people who have receptivity and response. Probably the best youth group that any nation has ever had. You’ll find them everywhere. Find them in the high schools and the colleges. You’ll find them even in the grade schools. You’ll find them belonging to all sorts of good organizations. Like these agricultural organizations, the three age groups. Everywhere. Witness to them. Encourage them. Right now they don’t have any voice. Only the wicked have a voice. Only the violent get a voice and headline.
And witness to them. Who have this receptivity and response. And that’s the only thing we need to do. We don’t need to be concerned about what’s going to happen. Only wasting our time. Only wasting our time. Pray redemptively, constructively, and not amiss. Pray the Lord’s Prayer. Or as Norman Elliott says, live the Lord’s Prayer. Well, if we’re going to live the Lord’s Prayer, we better pray, I guess.
Who will pray? Anybody here timid? Say, that is something there. I just thought of that. That came through. Is there anyone here in the congregation who has suffered a great deal with timidity? Sort of a sense of inferiority.
Is there anyone? They can’t hear you? That’s why they’re not standing. Huh? Where? Well, you come out. Only one in this vast assembly. You’re so timid, they can’t tell you that. What is your name, Emily? Emily. Well, Emily, dear, you pray for us. Well, Emily, dear, you pray for us. Thank you very much.