"It brings back to the same thing, in every congregation you have make-believers, unbelievers, and believers. It's been in every congregation. You find them all the time. Some of them make out like they're believers, that's the worst of type. And then they have those who are actually unbelievers; he won't bother you, he'll just walk away and shake his head. But those who make-believe, say they're believers, that's the kind you have to watch, is those make-believers. And then there is some genuine believers. See them three there? There was the unbelievers. As soon as He said, "Eat the flesh of the Son of man," Oh, man, that was it! The others was make-believers. They stayed till, just like Judas did, right up to the end. But then the real believers they couldn't explain it, but they believed it anyhow. They went on through."

The above statement was made by God's prophet William Marrion Branham when he preached a message in 1964 entitled 'The unveiling of God'.

What a truth of a statement! There have always been three kinds of believers from time immemorial and they are all identified in the Bible.

Let's go through all the three kinds of believers and see where you, dear reader, belong.

THE TRUE BELIEVER

The true believer of God's Word is the one who believes and stays with what God has said even if it does not make sense to him. He believes the original faith as preached by Paul and the early disciples (Jude 1:3). This is absolutely important since a deviation from the original Word is no more the Truth and therefore cannot represent Christ for Christ is the Truth (John 14:6).

Paul set a blue print by which any Christian, from the beginning of the New Testament to date, must measure what he hears or reads

Galatians 1:8,9 states "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed."

The above scripture compels the true believer to make the original faith, as preached by the Lord and the early disciples, his blue print. When the truth crosses the path of a true believer, his first consideration is not his pastor, his church tradition or popular opinion. His first and only consideration is what the Word says. He confers not with flesh and blood. His only consideration is to consult the Bible and see what the Word says about It.

Galatians 1:15-17 states "But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them who were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia and returned again unto Damascus".

That was what happened in the days of Paul when the men of Berea always subjected Paul's teachings to the scriptures to find out whether they were true. Because of this, the Bible called them noble men.

Acts 17:10,11 "And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so."

The true believer of the Word does not wait to see what the majority believe or say before he believes. He is not moved by what he sees or hears. He is only moved by the Word. Oh, Glory!

The prophet in a message The Unpardonable Sin, said "If you know what is the Gospel truth, and it's laid out to you, and God has revealed It to you, and you know it's the truth; but just to satisfy some congregation or some petty preacher, or to be popular, that you want to hold onto the things that you want to hold onto instead of taking God's Word; Paul said, "He that sins, or disbelieves, willfully after he has received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin." There's your unpardonable sin, is to know what is the truth and refuse to walk in it. Amen. Now, you believe that's right? That's what the Bible said. "He that sins." Sin is "unbelief."

Well, you say, "Is smoking a sin, drinking a sin?" No, no. That's the attributes of unbelief. You do that because you don't believe.

If a man says that he believes, he must be a Christian and walk in the way that he says he is (See?) attribute. The apple is not the tree; it's the attribute of the tree. And because you lie, steal, cheat, and smoke, and--and do everything, and call yourself a Christian, is because you are not born again. That's right. That shows that that's the kind of a life you bear. Jesus said, "By their fruit you shall know them." See?

And if you do those things, the Bible said, "If you love the world, or the things of the world, the love of God isn't even in you." You're just only religious and never had any salvation. Religious is a covering, but salvation is freedom. Hallelujah. Salvation uncovers (That's right.) and shows what you are. That's true. Now, because that we do things wrong, is because we do not believe.

But if you believe with all your heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God's under obligation, if your testimony's true, to give you the baptism of the Holy Ghost to seal you into the Kingdom till the day of your redemption. That's right."

The true believer believes that the Lord will do nothing until He reveals His secrets unto His servants the prophets. (Amos 3:8).

The Bible admonishes us that there shall be light in the evening time and that the original Faith, which was lost through the church ages, will be restored in the end time before the second coming of Christ (Zechariah 14:7, Acts 3:21, Rev.10:7 etc.).

For lack of adequate time and space I will cite only three Bible characters who are examples of true believers.

ABRAHAM

When God told Abraham to come out from among his kinsmen and go to a place unknown to him, he moved without showing the traits of a so-called modern believer – arguing, debating, reasoning etc. Abraham moved knowing that as long as God has spoken, he can rely on that (Genesis 12:1-4). Abraham's faith towards God's Word earned him the accolade The Father Of Faith.

CALEB

When Moses brought out 2 million strong Israelites from Egypt, only two of the followers were true believers. Caleb was one of the two true believers. The other was Joshua.

QUOTE:  'Smyrnaean Church Age' "They are like the children of Israel who came out of Egypt and stopped short of the Promised Land. Now those children of Israel left Egypt about two million strong. They all journeyed together, all saw the same miracles of God, all partook of the same manna and water from the smitten rock, all followed the same cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night but ONLY TWO reached the Promised Land. ONLY TWO WERE TRUE OR REAL BELIEVERS. That is correct because the Word tells us that the rest died because of unbelief; and because of unbelief they could not enter in (Hebrews 3:19). Then since that is so, and only TWO ENTERED, then the rest were not true believers. What made the difference? Two stayed with the Word. When the hearts of the ten spies failed at Kadesh Barnea, Joshua and Caleb did not stagger for they believed the Word and said, "We are more than able to take the land." They knew they could because God had said, "I have given you the land." After all those Israelites saw of the power and goodness and deliverance of God they did not enter into rest, which is a type of the Holy Ghost. So you can see right now that very few will ever believe all the way to receiving the Spirit of God."

PAUL

QUOTE:  'Ephesian Church Age',  "First of all, Paul was absolutely true to the Word. He never deviated from It no matter what the cost.

Galatians 1:8-9,
"But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed."

Galatians 2:11,14,
"But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed."
"But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?"

A true believer is not ashamed of the Gospel. He does not look to people for approval concerning the Word. He looks to God for approval. His life goes before him and his life is the life of the gospel. He is not a pretender. He is not carnally minded but spiritually minded. He is real. He takes God at His Word. Because he doesn't consider popular opinion but the Word, he is always an odd-ball to the public and those around him.

THE MAKE-BELIEVER

The make-believer is a very religious person. He could be in all church programmes making God's house his house. He derives his joy from church programmes and activities, gospel music and fellowship among brethren and not the Word. He believes some of God's Word and rejects some. Because he is very religious and married to his church instead of to the Word, he believes only the Word as preached by his church. He has no deep desire to know the Lord and His Word. No matter how revealing the Word is to him, he won't accept it unless It conforms to his churches beliefs.

His concern is not about receiving the original Word and the truth of It. His concern is looking good in the eyes of people, pleasing friends, his church and pastor. When it comes to the decision between choosing the Word and his church doctrine and dogmas, he goes for church dogmas even if it is contrary to the Word. His unbelief in the Word is exposed only when he is given the Word-test. Until then, you will not know he is an unbeliever. For he that disbelieves in one scripture, disbelieves in all. The unbeliever is carnally minded and not spiritually minded. He hangs around the Word of God in pretense just looking for an opportunity to criticize It. He pretends to love the Word though in his heart, he knows he does not truly believe everything the Word says.

Judas Iscariot is a good example of a make believer. He stayed in the church. He took part in evangelism. He was in the prayer campaign casting out devils in the Name of the Lord. He was so trusted until he kept the money of the ministry. In the long run, he could not go with the Word. He betrayed the Word and rejected It though he was religious.

QUOTE: 'We Would See Jesus' 1962 "And any man that don't believe every Word of this Bible, the spirit in you is wrong. The Holy Ghost wrote the Bible. It said so. Hebrews the 1st chapter said, "Men of old moved by the Holy Ghost wrote the Bible." Right. So the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible. Can He turn around, and deny It, or inject something in It that wasn't right? The real Holy Spirit in every man's life will punctuate every verse in that Bible with an "Amen." The real Holy Spirit, It believes it."

QUOTE: At Kadesh-Barnea 1956 "And when they went out, the Bible said a mixed multitude went out, a mixed group of people: some of them believers, some pretending to believe. The--the great miracles had been done; people went out as professed believers, and they was not believers. And that's where a great bunch of our trouble lays today; we could put our finger on it: Is men and women who come into church and profess to be believers and they're not believers. I've found it in the pulpit; I've found it in the prayer line; I've found it everywhere, where man come in, and women, who said, "I am a believer" and profess to be a believer, and they're not believers."

QUOTE: Three Kinds Of Believers', 1963 there was Judas, hung right on, he was a make-believer. What do they do? This is the kind that holds on until they can find something, a fault in It. They are looking every time to find a loophole, see how it's done, see if it's a trick, if it's a gimmick. They're waiting to be sold out. They're looking for that.

THE UNBELIEVER

The unbeliever will not pay heed to the Word in any way. He just walks away from It. He is, however, not as shrewd as the make-believer, he puts reasons above the Word every time and cannot have faith in It. He is not religious in any way.

QUOTE: Three Kinds of Believers 1963 "Ahab, he was an unbeliever, though he--he act like he wasn't. No, no, he was amongst the believers, but he was an unbeliever. What did he do? He married an idolatress, and brought it, idolatry, right into Israel. He was an unbeliever. We know that."

They deny the whole of the Word of God to be true. The unbeliever is, see, now remember, he's a hypocrite. And he--he acts like that, he says he believes It, but he denies It. He said, "Well, so much of It is well." But if all of it isn't right, then that makes him an unbeliever. You've got to believe every tittle and every jot, and everything that's said in There. It's got to be true. If It isn't true, if you say now, "I don't believe That," well, then you're a unbeliever".

QUOTE: Hebrews, Chapter Seven 1957, And you take the word sin and find out what it means. The word sin means "unbelief." There's only two factions, that is, a believer or an unbeliever. That's, a justified person or a sinner. That's all. If you're an unbeliever, you're a sinner; no matter how good you are, how much you go to church, or even if you're a preacher. You're still an unbeliever.

Those Pharisees were preachers, and they were unbelievers, and in hell today for it. Just as religious as they could be, and pious, but they didn't believe Him. And they called Him "a devil," and disputed His Word. And some of them said, "If thou be, now come down off the cross. Perform a miracle. Let us see you do it." One smote Him on the head, with a stick, and said, "Prophesy and tell us who hit you, you a prophet, and we'll believe you." See, unbelievers! They make-believe that they were believers, but they were unbelievers, un-regenerated, separated, though they were holy and pious.

QUOTE: Abrahams Grace Covenant 1961, "Now, there's always three classes of people: the unbeliever, the make-believer, and the believer. See? Now, the unbeliever and the make-believer stays together. But the real believer separates himself: what makes him the church."

Dear reader, which of the above categories of believers are you identified with? Are you a true believer of the Word, a make-believer or an unbeliever? You cannot be neutral in this case. If you are not a true believer, doubting some part of the entire revealed Word, it is high time you repented.

The Bible was not written for groups. It was written for individuals like you. Make a personal decision to live by EVERY WORD that proceeds from the mouth of God for man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).

God bless you!