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now, and I trust that there is exercise to cling to what we have

had and what we now have.

‘Hold fast what thou hast’ (Revelation 3: 11), was the word to

Philadelphia, “that no one take thy crown”. I think

Philadelphia’s crown is the personal approval of Christ, but it

involves that the saints are committed to keeping His word and

not denying His name. What the Lord is entitled to we surely

desire to make available to Him. There were earlier watches of

the night. There is no time to refer to them in detail now. We

can think of the Reformation and of Wycliffe and others nearly

200 years before Luther. All these movements brought the

Lord Himself before the saints. In the addresses to the

assemblies we get the same thing. In writing to the angel of

each assembly the Lord presents Himself in a distinctive way

and it is very important to lay hold of that.

In Revelation 22: 16 we are right at the end of the period here,

the end of the night, the end of the watches, and the Lord

again presents Himself. Here it is the shining of the morning

star.

In John 21 He is standing on the shore (I want to link these

passages together), but here it is,

“I Jesus have sent mine angel”. What an appeal! What

personality underlies it. Who could appeal like Jesus? “I am

the root and offspring of David”. Let us lay hold of that. We

were saying today that Satan is attacking relentlessly the holy

manhood of Jesus and putting forward the denial of His deity.

Oh may our hearts be rallied by this appeal. His own word to

us, “I am the root and offspring of David”. David stands for the

very best, and how wonderful it is to think of Jesus in this

regard. I believe that Satan is outdoing himself in what he is at

because every genuine lover of Christ will rally to the support

of the truth of His Person in the present blatant attack on our

Saviour. Many scriptures come to mind—John 1, Colossians

1,