CHAPTER 19 DIVISION, UNITY & REVIVAL Across the United States, from many churches and radio and television ministries, over the last twenty-five years, we have been hearing a cry for Revival!  This cry has been the loudest from the Charismatics.  They are realizing that much of the anointing of God is gone from their movement and the culture shaking revival that they have desired has not yet happened.  The plea to pray for Revival has gone forth from the Assemblies of God and Foursquare Churches, Trinity Broadcasting Network, Promise Keepers and many others.  Many Charismatics have periodically prophesied that just such a move of God was only a year or two away.  Even though we have had several outbursts of revival in Toronto, Canada and Pensacola, Florida, we have yet to see a revival that caused more than a mild stir.  The Toronto Revival had small repercussions in England and America and for the most part attracted men and women who wanted to experience “holy” laughter.  The Pensacola or Brownsville Revival, which was deeper, still had no substantial impact on the culture of America.   These two moves of God, which certainly touched many in the Charismatic Movement, were essentially Saul revivals.  During this time I visited Pensacola, Florida (home of the Brownsville Revival) and a number of meet- ings in the Oregon area that were led by people from the revivals in Toronto and Brownsville.  I could not help but notice that people usually got what they prayed for or desired, and no more. I saw dozens of people at a variety of meetings answer the preacher’s call to “belly up to the bar of the Holy Spirit.”  They would come back with an experience of laughter that, upon reflection, seemed to change nothing in their lives.  Some did not even experience the joy of the Lord; they just laughed.  Even at Brownsville, some just seemed as if they would be satisfied with falling over, and that was all they got.  Others however, during the baptismal services, expressed a deep regret for their lives spent in sin and an equally deep thankfulness for the forgiveness that God had worked in them.  Most of these that were so affected were young people in their teenage years and early twenties and many, I learned later, were markedly changed.   At other meetings across the country, however, I only saw the shallowest of experiences:  many laughed, many walked very strangely and many talked in disrespectful terms about the power of the Holy Spirit that was around them.  When they fell down, they would talk about doing “carpet time”, and the phrase “belly up to the bar of the Holy Spirit” was uttered far too many times. The Lord spoke to me during those times, and He told me that this WAS a move of God, but that it was a Saul revival:  shallow and for the purpose of giving the people what they wanted.  He would give people what they wanted, and in most cases no more than they asked.   Many were united in their desire to have an experience with God.  Many pastors were united in their desire to have a larger church by giving people an experience with God.  I saw few that just wanted more of Jesus Christ.   Most, however, were satisfied to go to meetings and have experience after experience after experience.  I saw some that said they wanted more of Jesus, but all they talked about was the experience of being filled with laughter and how much carpet time they had spent.   Along with the cries for revival has come an equally loud call for unity.  The Charismatics are aware that the 120 in the Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost were in one accord when the Holy Spirit came upon them.  The Saul Church has been striving for God’s people to “be in one accord” and to "bring the Body of Christ together in unity.” They have had many seminars, camp meetings, conferences and prayer sessions, all in an effort to bring about unity and then revival.  They have filled football stadiums, auditoriums, city parks and downtown Washington D.C., but with little spiritual impact on America.   The truth of the matter is that they HAVE come to be in “one accord.”  They ALL believe that doctrine is not very important and they ALL believe that all you need to do is love one another and have lots of prayer.  They are in one accord regarding the need for lots of prayer and unifying regardless of doctrinal positions.  Church history, however, teaches us differently.  The Roman Catholic monks were in one accord with the Roman Catholic Church and prayed for hours every day for more than a thousand years, and things only got worse!   The accord that they and everyone else needs to strive for is to be IN ONE ACCORD WITH GOD’S WORD!  To accomplish this individuals must seek for the Lord Himself with all their hearts both in their time with Him in prayer and in the Scriptures.  As men and women do just that, they can anticipate finding Him in all His glory and He will pour out His Holy Spirit of love and power so that He may be glorified by His people.  This prayer must be couched in terms that make it clear that “whatever it takes Lord, bless us with the fullness of Yourself.”  The Scripture makes it clear that if we seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him and He will be glorified by our faith filled love and obedience.     It almost seems that as the Saul Church’s desire for unity has become stronger and stronger and has spread to more and different religions, doctrine has became progressively less important and much weaker.  The greater they have sought for unity the less powerful the Holy Spirit has been in their midst.  This is not coincidence.   When you essentially dismiss what Scripture says in order to achieve unity, you are dismissing the Holy Spirit also.  The Charismatics have reached out to Methodists, Baptists, Possibility Thinkers, Christian psychologists, Roman Catholics and anti-Trinitarians to complete the unity that they feel will bring down the power of the Holy Spirit in Revival.      Many Reformed Christians and some Evangelicals have risen up and rejected this appeal to unity as being based on tolerance of error at the expense of truth.  Neo-Calvinists have increased dramatically over the last twenty-five years and have rightly filled the internet with warnings against the systematic dismantling of Reformation truth.   Many of the divisions that have occurred over the last twenty-five years seem to have come about after God’s people began to pray for Revival.  Because of this division and apparent confusion, the unity people have become even more committed to unity and have loudly rebuked “divisive” critics who criticize the Charismatics for compromising sound doctrine to achieve unity.   These Charismatics claim and apparently sincerely believe that Satan is behind most if not all the division and divisive people in the visible Body of Christ today. Unfortunately these people have neglected a prominent Scriptural principle and a prophetic truth.  Jesus says in Matthew 10:34-35, "I did not come to bring peace but a sword.  For I came to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother.”  Jesus spoke these words several years before His disciples were in one accord in the Upper Room and then experienced the mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  The years preceding this tremendous revival were years of division and turmoil.  The words of Jesus had indeed become a sword.  The remnant of disciples who followed Jesus were divided from the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  These two groups constituted the majority of religious life in the nation of Israel.  It is a sad fact that the only display of unity during the time of Jesus’ ministry was when the Conservative Pharisees and Liberal Sadducees were united in their goal to have Jesus crucified and His followers either destroyed or punished severely.   When we look at every revival since Pentecost, we see this principle operating.  First the sword of the Word comes and a small group of people who have hungry hearts for God are divided from those who are satisfied with the status quo of their churches.  Typically in all these culture shaking revivals, this small group of people or Remnant has been vilified or ignored by the powers that ruled the existing churches. The Word of God divided Martin Luther, Zwingli, John Calvin and others from the Roman Catholics, then the Lord brought a measure of unity to the Protestants and His Church was revived and reformed.  These men realized that “the just shall live by faith” and that salvation came by the power of God and not by doing penance, paying for indulgences, or any other work of man.  They realized that the Roman Catholic Church was either dead or asleep and needed to be revived.  The leaders and most Catholics refused to go along with reformation and revival because they were basically satisfied with the way things were going.   The Early Methodists in England were desperately hungry for peace and a joyful relationship with God and were not receiving much life giving ministry from the Church of England in the 18th century.  These men, led first by George Whitfield and then John Wesley, started the culture shaking revival that changed the British Isles in the 18th century.  This hungry remnant was considered unbalanced and was vilified or ignored by most leaders and many members of the Church of England.  Similarly in America, the Great Awakening under Jonathan Edwards and others re-established the strength of the dying Church in the 13 colonies.  The mighty power of the Holy Spirit that literally knocked men and women over with deep conviction for their sins was dismissed by the Church of England as merely an attack of “emotionalism.”  Also, most ministers taught their congregations that they really didn’t need to be “born again” as the preachers of The Great Awakening taught their listeners.    In the latter part of the 19th century, once again, men were concerned about the lack of spiritual life in the churches.  Particularly in the United States small groups emerged that were very hungry for God and desired to see His power over Satan once again manifest in the supernatural gifts and ministries of the Holy Spirit that existed in the New Testament Church.  Their prayers were answered by an outpouring on people who spoke in tongues and ministered the gifts of healing and prophesied.  As in earlier revivals, these “holy rollers” were either vilified or ignored by most in the established churches.  These churches did not believe that the supernatural power of God could flow through men after the establishment of the Canon of Scripture.  Neither did they believe that ministries such as apostle or prophet could occur outside the New Testament Church time.  These Pentecostal people became united in their desire to preach what they called “the Full Gospel” and went on to touch the world with their message, and in many cases, minister the fullness of the Holy Spirit to God’s people. Historically we have seen that even in the new unity that God created, there were divisions in this unity.  Even people of revival have embraced wrong doctrine and have given men and their ideas more respect than God and His Word.  There typically has been, however, a unifying desire to see God move more deeply and effectively in His people.  Often there has been a unifying doctrinal thrust that characterized each revival movement.   Eventually, in any revival, men are driven out of and divided from the movement that needs revival, because it is always a small group of people that hear God’s cry for His people to wake up to the truth.   Today we are seeing Division in the Body of Christ.  We prayed for Revival and God is answering our prayers as He always has - by separating out for Himself a people whom He will bring back to true life (REVIVE).  He will only revive people who realize their own lack of spiritual life.  He will only revive a Church that knows it is spiritually near death or asleep.  Revival is only for people who are DESPERATE for help.  Most in the Saul Church who pray for revival are essentially satisfied with their own lives and the condition of the Church.  All the Charismatics really want to do is see more people “saved” and more non-Charismatics "filled with the Spirit.” They see no need for basic changes.  They really are not DESPERATE for Revival because they do not think that they are spiritually asleep or near death.  What they really want is for God to IMPROVE and expand what they already have.  God will NEVER revive a people who are self satisfied and no longer hunger and thirst deep- ly for righteousness, either as individuals or the Church as a whole. These people will not experience revival until they see that they need to be revived.  Unfortunately the Saul Church is content to re-define the word “revival” to mean church growth, larger budgets, more recognition by the world, the election of a Christian president, or an exciting speaker for three or more consecutive days. To be involved in God's mighty Holy Spirit outpouring we MUST REALIZE that we are in desperate need of Life and that we need to be separated from those who are satisfied with death.  We must OPEN OUR EYES to see what God wants and is doing.  We must identify with Jesus and His Word, which is the sword, as it comes down and divides God's people by challenging them to repent of error and embrace truth. WE MUST CHOOSE to line up with the One who is bearing the sword. Most importantly, we MUST REALIZE even before revival comes that IT IS GOD, NOT SATAN who is causing the division. DIVISION BECAUSE OF THE DEALINGS OF GOD Around twenty years ago as I was praying about an upcoming prayer meeting involving several churches, the Lord gave me a vision and then explained the vision.  He said that He was going to send a storm to His Church.   He said "Lightening will not awake the blind and thunder will not awake the deaf, but My sheep will hear My voice in the thunder and see My purpose in the lightening.  I will awaken with My thunder and shatter with My lightening.  In the midst of the lightening and thunder I will bring a driving rain, not to soften the earth for planting, but to CLEANSE the land.  Those who thirst for ME will drink and be cleansed.  Those who are satisfied with the way they are will not drink, and will be washed away.  My lightening bolts will strike many who are called by My name.  My people are asleep.  They have been lulled to sleep by preachers of profit and comfort who feed them drugged desserts and withhold the meat and EVEN the milk." In the vision I saw dark storm clouds rolling in very fast and furiously.  Elohim Himself was thrusting many lightening bolts earthward.  He said, "Many will run for cover - because they fear the effect of My lightening and My thunder.  But those WHO ARE MINE will let the lightening strike them, and do its work of death. Then they will be raised up and do My works with power and with an electricity of life that results from being crucified to the world and alive to Me.  Others will come out from their safe dwelling places to see the lightening, but will not like it, and will scurry back to their comfort.  But the PEOPLE whose hearts are after Me will REJOICE in the storm that I bring.  And some will even CALL for the lightening to fall and will PRAY for the floods to come to cleanse My land."  The Lord made it very clear that the storm He would send would come FROM HIM and NOT THE ENEMY. In March of 1987, several weeks after the Lord spoke, we saw a storm hit the visible Body of Christ.  We saw God start to deal very personally.  He dealt with a televangelist  and his wife.  We saw the lightening bolt of accusation hit this man and in the brightness of its flash, illuminate his heart and deeds for all to see.  We saw this man scurry from those blasts to the convenient protection of his own self-righteous excuses and counter accusations.  He could have been humbled by this experience immediately and during this time pour out his heart in complete confession and true repentance before the same people that he had failed: his television audience.   But he chose not to.  He could have asked forgiveness from others whom he had compromised or betrayed because of his sinful lust and greed, but he did not.  He could have been like David and responded to the words of those who accused him with, "I have sinned against the Lord."  This response could have been without rationalization or excuse.  Instead, he responded like Saul.  Initially he grudgingly admitted to the facts that were irrefutable, but made excuses and denials as long as that served his purposes.  Then he took a vow of silence for the supposed purpose of peace and unity, but really for the preservation of his own righteousness.  If he would have stood firm and let the lightening bolt strike deep into his heart by publicly repenting of his sins, God would have given him a NEW power in his life and ministry.  He would have found that the same electricity that illuminated and electrocuted him would have also empowered him. Eventually, after years in prison and eventual release, he acknowledged and repented of the fact that he had taught a gospel of prosperity that was not in Scripture.  To the best of my knowledge, he did not publicly repent of many other sins that he was apparently involved with, but he did seem to have a better attitude towards God and ministry.  It was not as complete a repentance as many wanted, but it has been a fairly good start.  He has worked with homeless people and consistently spoken against the unscriptural “prosperity” gospel.  It is up to God to judge the true intents of his heart. Shortly after the exposure of this man and his wife, at a national meeting of a prominent Charismatic denomination, one of the leaders exhorted the hundreds of pastors present to pray against the devil and the newspapers and other media that exposed the activities of this televangelist. He believed this man and his ministry had been set up for destruction by Satan and the media, and that we should all stand shoulder to shoulder with our brother who was being attacked so viciously. After this exhortation, I approached a district supervisor at the meeting and told him the word that God had shown us shortly before the exposure took place.  When I mentioned the part that talked about God was the one who would expose the sins of men in both high places and low places for the purpose of cleaning His Church up, he was shocked.  He verbally chastised me severely and made it clear that what I spoke was definitely not from God, and that he would not allow me to deliver that message. In October of that same year, we witnessed the exposure of another popular televangelist.  This fiery and sometimes anointed preacher of holiness was shown to be a hypocrite.  This man was extremely critical of men who fell into adultery and was almost gleeful in his condemnation.  Unfortunately for him, his own sexual relations with prostitutes came to light.  He was asked to step down from his position of authority by his denomination’s governing body.  Even though he uttered publicly the words “I have sinned,” he never felt that his years of sexual sin merited his temporary removal from leadership in his denomination.  Instead of submitting to the men over him, he decided to leave the denomination and form his own work.  His rationalization was that he was the one that God had called to supervise this ministry of evangelism and telecommunications and if he quit, the work would fail.  The work was essentially destroyed and left without power because of his inability to recognize the depth of his sin and the dealings he was experiencing from God Himself.   God's lightening storm has sent bolts of lightening to many. He has dealt with and is dealing with His people in very personal and very shocking ways.  The bolts He is thrusting at us are to test us concerning our desire to repent and become like Him.  So many of us say that we want to be like Jesus, but when the Lord challenges us to forsake our sin by sending us a lightening bolt (often in the form of a crisis or a clear-cut but difficult decision that we need to make) we run from the lightening bolt and cling to our sin or our own will.  Thus the true nature of our heart is exposed by His illuminating flash. In the denomination that I ministered in for eight years, we experienced the lightening bolts of God.  We lost both a divisional supervisor (an elder over five or six other churches) and a district supervisor (who shepherded the pastors of over 130 churches).  We lost both of these men because of their adulterous relationships.  One of these men who had slept with a number of women in his congregation refused to be corrected in any way and left the denomination along with the people of his church.  The district supervisor, however, completely acknowledged his sin before all 130 pastors that he had shepherded.  In no way did he blame his wife, or the woman he was involved with.  Like David, he accepted the exposure of his sin.  He accepted his punishment which was the removal from authority as just and merciful dealings from God.  I have heard that he has found success in other ministry and is considered to be a man of wisdom.  I don’t know what happened to the adulterous district supervisor.   With David the lightening bolt was the confrontation with the prophet Nathan.  In Nathan's simple story of a poor man and his little sheep (see II Samuel chapter 12) David's treacherous, lustful heart was exposed.  David could have done what many kings and religious leaders would have done.  He could have called for the prophet to be thrown out or killed.  Or he could have been religious and said, "I understand what you are saying; I receive that Nathan.  It took a lot of courage for you to deliver that word to me.  I will pray about it.  By the way Nathan, don't call me, I'll call you." Then David could have continued to rationalize his sin and eventually he would have become another Saul and been judged by God for his rebellion.  But David chose to immediately, humbly, and repentantly submit to this terrible lightening bolt from God.  He chose to not only let the lightening expose His terrible sin, but he allowed the lightening bolt to smash right into his heart and deliver its excruciatingly painful sentence of death to his pride. He chose to be dealt with by God completely and immediately, without excuse.   Why did David do this?  Why was he different from Saul?  It is because David measured the worth of the Lord's abiding presence and love against the desire to maintain his own pride and self righteousness.  In the end, David wanted God's love more than he wanted to keep his own pride and self righteousness.  David's pride was electrocuted but his heart was electrified and empowered to write one of the greatest songs of God's forgiveness, love, mercy and worth - Psalm 51. God is dividing the Davids from the Sauls.  When lightening illuminated Saul's rebellious, materialistic, and people-pleasing spirit the best he could do was to make excuses.  But in doing so he also excused himself out of the kingdom of God, away from the abiding presence of the Lord, and into a life of being ruled by the spirit of rebellion that God had attempted to put to death.  He did not let the lightening into his heart to perform the required surgery.  He ran from the lightening because he loved the darkness more than the light.  But as he ran from the dealings of God, he ran away from God Himself.  God then divided Saul from Himself and His kingdom by the lightening bolt He delivered through Samuel the prophet. The storms from God are for the purpose of setting apart (dividing) those who truly are called by His name.   The lightening bolts that hit prominent Christian figures will also fall with equal force on those of us who are not prominent.  The purpose, as with our leaders, is to give us an opportunity to put to death our sins of rebellion, self-justification and pride. All through the Body of Christ men and women are being challenged.  The lightening bolts of God, either through prophets, circumstances or a direct word form the Lord, are exposing monument building, dependence on money to minister, fear of a spouse, the love of luxury and comfort that the world offers, lust, presumption, pride, rebellion, and double-mindedness.  We must not run from His lightening bolts!  We must let Him illuminate the sin in our hearts and electrocute our old man.  We MUST be found among those who call for the lightening to come.   And because we hate our sin and our divided hearts, we must not care who sees us as we really are, ALL BECAUSE WE WANT TO BE WITH HIM AND PLEASE HIM—WHATEVER IT TAKES! DIVISION OF THE PURE FROM THE IMPURE Years ago at a meeting of ministers, the Lord spoke to me about the need for Christians to judge righteous judgment.  He showed me a fountain gushing out of the earth and a stream that came forth from that fountain.   From a distance the fountain looked relatively clear.  When I got closer to it, I could see debris in the fountain.   The fountain contained clods of dirt, tin cans, refuse, and garbage – but the debris did not make the water undrinkable, you just had to be careful.  Then I saw the fountain split and there were two fountains.  One of the fountains was becoming clearer; there was less and less debris and refuse as it continued streaming forth.  The other fountain was getting more and more filthy until eventually all that came out of it was a horrible smelling, sludge-like material.  Eventually the smelly, sludge-like material just stopped and that fountain ran dry.  The stream that was getting progressively clearer became perfectly clear and this stream flooded over everything and even the fountain of filth was swept away. Then the pure stream became an ocean and covered the whole earth.   I asked the Lord the meaning of the vision and He said that the single undivided fountain and the stream that came from it was the move of the Holy Spirit on the earth as it existed at the time of the vision.  He said that the stream would split into two streams, because He was going to bring division.  He said that there would then be two “apparent” moves of His Holy Spirit upon the earth.  One stream, the stream that becomes progressively more pure, will be made up of people who HONESTLY look at the stream of the Holy Spirit in their own lives and in the life of His Church.  He said that those who see the impurities (sins and unscriptural doctrines), acknowledge the these sins and unscriptural doctrines,  confess these sins and unscriptural doctrines and repent of these sins and unscriptural doctrines will be a part of the move of His Spirit and will become progressively more like Jesus.  The stream that gets dirtier, until it is completely filthy, is made up of people who will NOT see the impurities (sins and unscriptural doctrines) in their own lives or in the life of the Church.   These people will stubbornly choose NOT to let God’s Word and God’s men JUDGE their hearts and doctrine.   They will take the position that they do not need cleansing and that it is not necessary to JUDGE the CHURCH with regards to matters of doctrine or the practices of its leaders and sheep.  These people are SATISFIED to remain in their current condition and are confident that God will put this unacknowledged and unrepented sin and carnal ministry “under the Blood.”  They feel sure that His love will cover their multitude of sins and poor doctrines.  These unrepentant, presumptuous people will become progressively more impure until they are totally defiled and the movement that they are involved in will also become totally defiled.   The Lord said that soon He will raise up men who will expose the filthiness in the Church, both doctrinally and personally.  He said that it is NECESSARY that we listen to these men.  Those who speak against and mock or IGNORE them are in danger of being part of the FILTHINESSS described above.  But all who fall on their faces before God and repent of their terrible carnality, and cry out against the abominations that are being committed in His Holy Temple will be spared the filth and the judgment that follows.  In our day it will be as prophesied by Ezekiel in chapter 9, “”And the Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sign and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst.”” A year or two after the Lord showed me the fountain vision He showed me a grassy plain with a huge fault line stretching off to the horizon.  There were tens of thousands of people straddling this fault line when all of a sudden the earth began to violently shake.  The earth split in two and I could see some of the people jumping to one side and others jumping to the other side But I could also see thousands who could not make up their minds.   As the crack widened these fell into the apparently bottomless crevice between the divided parts of the plain.   One plain was rising upward away from the other part as the split grew.  As the one side was slowly rising I saw a man, who at the last minute, realized that he had made the wrong choice.  He leaped from the lower side towards the higher side.  He tried to grab hold of the higher side as it rose away from him, but all he could grab was a chunk of turf.  This gave way and he fell with the turf in his hand, screaming out to God as he fell.  Then I saw a Hand reach down and catch him in mid air, and place him on the rising side. This vision is clear.  We are in the first stages of a great division that God is performing.  We are being FORCED by God to choose THIS DAY whom we will serve.  We are being given an ever clearer view of the impurity of the visible Church and the great gulf that is beginning to form between two opposite viewpoints.  One viewpoint, held by those who emphasize unity at the expense of truth, is that everything is basically okay and we should just love one another in spite of our differences, get together and pray and not be concerned about the unrighteousness that is so prevalent in the Church.    The other viewpoint held by the “divisive people” is that there is a desperate need for radical surgery in the visible Body of Christ.  We must recognize the need to mercifully expose sinful doctrines and stop trying to protect sinful, unrepentant men.  We must choose, as the “split” widens, which way we will jump.  We must leap to the side which is rising to a walk of holiness, a place of reigning, in purity and truth, with our Savior.  And even if we have seen the split, have been on the wrong side, and are falling fast, we must CRY OUT TO GOD for FORGIVENESS and MERCY and TRUST HIM to catch us in His hand and plant us on the solid ground.  From now on our spiritual lives depend how well we discern God’s truth and choose to live according to God’s Word. DIVISION BECAUSE OF DEPTH OF COMMITMENT In January of 1987, during a prayer meeting devoted to praying for revival in the Los Angeles area, many people were exclaiming at how wonderful it was that the Lord was unifying His people for revival.  Brethren from five different Churches were included in the meeting.  In the midst of these words about unity, we gathered together to pray.  We prayed standing, forming two circles, one inside the other.  As we began to pray, the Lord spoke to us about His upcoming revival.  Then, He showed me a beautiful harbor with clear, calm water.  Again I saw a pearl lying on the bottom in a deep part of the harbor.  This time I saw people swimming on top of the water.   Some of this group looked down and saw the pearl at the bottom of the water and exclaimed at its beauty.   Others with face masks dove down to get a closer look.  Some even attempted to dive down and retrieve the pearl but found that the pearl was further away than they had first thought.  These swimmers quickly returned to the surface and resumed their enjoyment of the sun and the swimming.  Finally, several decided that the Pearl was worth every effort.  These dove down determined to get it.  Once again, as in the Pearl Harbor vision, the ones who did retrieve the Pearl came to a place where all their own strength was gone and their last breath was breathed, but they DID get the Pearl. The Lord said that even as there were two circles of people praying, there also are two groups of people who call themselves Christians.  The first group is the people who swim on the top of the water, are aware of the pearl, talk about it, and perhaps even dive under the surface to get a better look, but are not willing to pay the price of self-denial necessary to swim down to get the Pearl.  God said these people are shallow and superficial.   They know how to talk about Jesus, and sometimes venture completely into His territory (the water) but are NOT WILLING to die to themselves that they might possess Him completely.  They really do not BELIEVE that He is worth the price of dying to their own desires.  They are quite satisfied to bask in the sunlight of this world and enjoy its comforting rays, and to float on the top of the Realm of the Pearl Himself, the Kingdom of God.  They are willing (and in fact, some feel obligated) to dive in every now and then for a closer look, but they WILL NOT go to the depths.  They truly BELIEVE that they can in this way, by being shallow, experience the best of both worlds. The other group is the people who are willing to go as far as is necessary to possess His life and His presence, and endure to the end of themselves.  Anything can and will be endured in order to reach this goal.  They will go as deep as they have to BECAUSE they believe HIS LOVE is worth EVERYTHING. The Lord said that He is dividing the visible Church even now. He is identifying His own.  They are the ones who believe that He and His love are worth everything.  They are willing to seek for Him deeply, regardless of what it means in regard to the cost.  God said He is separating His people from the shallow, double-minded lukewarm, Laodicean "Christians.”  He showed me that some of these Laodiceans ARE willing, when challenged with the Word of separation that God was sending forth, to renounce the sunshine of the world and dive deeply into the pure, clean, cold waters of the harbor to lay hold of the Pearl.  God is separating the shallow, superficial HEARERS of His Word from the people who want Him enough to be DOERS of His Word, because they know His love and forgiveness and love Him so deeply. The principle is consistent.  The Lord is dividing David from Saul.  He is dividing those who want ONLY Him from those who want Him but still are satisfied with the status quo of the Church.  We must realize that we are being challenged by God to love Him enough to hate the world, deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him.  He is commanding us to die to our own desires.  We are being told to count the cost and see if we TRULY BELIEVE that He is worth pursuing with all of our body, mind, soul and strength. God will certainly divide those whose hearts are like David from those whose hearts are like Saul.  Those who major in meeting the perceived needs of men will be separated from those who major in glorifying and loving God for Himself alone.  He will do this work of separation by placing all who are called by His name in a crucible of His dealings and the gold of David will be separated from the dross of Saul.  When this process of sifting and dividing is accomplished THEN He will unite His people into one Body with one MIND and one PURPOSE and THEN He will pour out His Holy Spirit and mightily anoint this single-minded,