It is unfortunate that so many preachers and teachers of the scriptures exist today, where almost all of them are false, having none of God within them and none of God’s Spirit with them, teaching doctrines favoured by men. Test the spirits of those who speak is crucial to protecting faith. There is no justification to allow false teachings to take hold within your mind and heart, not for any reason, because false teachings are sinful. False teachings are contrived by the carnal mind and the carnal mind will always be an enmity to God. False teachings or false doctrines are not of faith,  and this means that anything not of faith is sin. This is how serious false doctrines and teachings are to true faith.

When faced with the countless preachers and teachers out there that profess belief systems and doctrines, how can you ensure that your faith is protected and not infected by these falsehoods? The answer is to test the spirit of those words.

Testing the spirit is not solely by comparing word for word in the Bible, as so many other Christians profess to do. This is not the way Paul the Apostle taught. He made it clear that the letter of the word killeth, only the spirit gives life. This says that to compare the letter of the word for the letter of the word will get nothing in return but darkness and misunderstanding, but to compare the spirit of the word, which words are spirit and they are life, will get truth. This means to learn and exercise spiritual discernment, just as Paul the Apostle teaches. When a person learns the gospel by the revelation of Jesus Christ, he will learn the spiritual meaning and application. Then and only then can a person test the spirits because then it is comparing spiritual with spiritual.

When a person is able to compare rightly, then he/she is “rightly dividing the word“, which gives the power to  test the spirits of others and their words, to spiritually discern if they speak God’s word or not. If not, what is said is rejected or treated as “of the world”.

Until that time that you learn to rightly divide the word and spiritually discern, keep one’s faith a distance from preachers, teachers or presenters (famous or not). Staying at a spiritual distance until you work out with God what is true. Never give any person’s words justification, such as “they are just giving provoking thought, or trying to progress, or they are just beginners in a beginner church, etc. Such justifications in your heart and mind weaken faith because sin is justified and God cannot accept sin in any degree. A good Christian, a good Saint speaks respectfully to false speakers, but at no time accepts falsehoods or false doctrines and stands strong in the faith, which can only occur when living the true doctrines of the gospel.

(Note, the words in italics are words matching scriptural passages in the King James Bible)