84 Bible Verses about Test The Spirits

1 John 4:1 ESV / 48 helpful votes

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

1 John 4:1-6 ESV / 20 helpful votes

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. ...

1 John 4:3 ESV / 14 helpful votes

And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

1 John 4:1-21 ESV / 14 helpful votes

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. ...

2 Peter 2:1 ESV / 14 helpful votes

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 ESV / 14 helpful votes

But test everything; hold fast what is good.

2 Corinthians 11:14 ESV / 14 helpful votes

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

1 John 4:1-3 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

1 Timothy 4:1 ESV / 12 helpful votes

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,

Matthew 24:24 ESV / 12 helpful votes

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

1 John 4:2 ESV / 11 helpful votes

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,

Deuteronomy 13:1-5 ESV / 11 helpful votes

“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

1 John 4:5 ESV / 10 helpful votes

They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.

1 John 2:18 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 ESV / 9 helpful votes

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

1 John 4:2-3 ESV / 8 helpful votes

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

John 1:1 ESV / 8 helpful votes

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 John 1:7 ESV / 7 helpful votes

For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.

1 John 4:4 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

James 2:19 ESV / 7 helpful votes

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!

Ephesians 6:12 ESV / 7 helpful votes

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Isaiah 8:20 ESV / 7 helpful votes

To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.

2 Corinthians 11:14-15 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

1 Corinthians 12:10 ESV / 6 helpful votes

To another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

Acts 17:11 ESV / 6 helpful votes

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

Matthew 7:15-16 ESV / 6 helpful votes

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

Isaiah 8:19 ESV / 6 helpful votes

And when they say to you, “Inquire of the mediums and the necromancers who chirp and mutter,” should not a people inquire of their God? Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living?

1 John 4:6 ESV / 5 helpful votes

We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Ephesians 4:14 ESV / 5 helpful votes

So that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

John 16:13 ESV / 5 helpful votes

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

John 14:6 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Revelation 13:1-18 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. ...

Revelation 2:2 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.

1 John 4:7 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

1 John 4:5-6 ESV / 4 helpful votes

They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Hebrews 9:27 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,

2 Timothy 3:1-17 ESV / 4 helpful votes

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. ...

1 Thessalonians 5:20-22 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.

Ephesians 2:2 ESV / 4 helpful votes

In which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—

Galatians 1:8 ESV / 4 helpful votes

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

Acts 20:29 ESV / 4 helpful votes

I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;

John 3:16-17 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Matthew 25:41 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Matthew 7:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Ecclesiastes 9:5 ESV / 4 helpful votes

For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.

Deuteronomy 18:3 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And this shall be the priests' due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep: they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach.

Leviticus 20:6 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“If a person turns to mediums and necromancers, whoring after them, I will set my face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.

Leviticus 19:31 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God.

Revelation 19:10 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

2 Peter 2:1-22 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; ...

1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.

Mark 3:11 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.”

Matthew 7:15 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

Matthew 4:11 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

Daniel 9:21 ESV / 3 helpful votes

While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice.

Daniel 8:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And I heard a man's voice between the banks of the Ulai, and it called, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.”

2 Kings 21:6 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And he burned his son as an offering and used fortune-telling and omens and dealt with mediums and with necromancers. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.

2 Kings 21:2 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

Deuteronomy 18:21-22 ESV / 3 helpful votes

And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

Deuteronomy 6:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah.

Revelation 16:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.

Revelation 16:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs.

1 Peter 5:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Ephesians 2:20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,

Galatians 5:22-23 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

2 Corinthians 11:13-15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

1 Corinthians 14:29 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said.

1 Corinthians 6:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?

Romans 15:13 ESV / 2 helpful votes

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Romans 12:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 8:26 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Romans 8:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

Acts 5:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said,

Acts 2:38 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.

Acts 1:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

John 20:12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet.

John 1:14 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Mark 13:21 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it.

Mark 5:7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.”

Mark 1:24 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.”

Daniel 6:22 ESV / 2 helpful votes

My God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.”

Jeremiah 29:8 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream,

Genesis 1:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

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