This is actually an important question, and someone at my church even wrote a long article on the subject. I will probably be more brief here. (We'll see.)
1. Know God. A person best learns to identify the counterfeit/false by coming to know the true very, very well. This is not limited to intellectual recognition, but very much includes spiritual discernment. Discernment is something one should seek from God via prayer, but it is also a skill one gets better and better at through practice. Examples of spirits are things like love, pride, victimhood, peace, etc. Obviously some of those are good and some are bad.
Coming to know God means reading one's Bible, spending time in prayer, asking God questions and being open to even surprising answers. God can use people to this end, but there is a significant difference between seeking God and having him answer through a person, and seeking a person to tell you what God thinks.
2) Know your scripture. Really, this is a continuation of the above. Knowing your scripture, though gives you something to test things against, and for Holy Spirit to bring to mind when needed. For example, one day I felt a strong spirit (roughly feels like a feeling or emotion, though they aren't the same thing) on me all day long that I couldn't identify. After many hours of crying out to God for help with identifying it and knowing what to do about it, a scripture came to mind that suddenly allowed me to identify in words what the spirit was and how vile it was. God then showed me from there what to do about it, which I won't get into here.
3) When in doubt, throw it out. If you need to know badly enough, God can bring it up again another way, so it's okay to say you don't know and you're going to let go on figuring it out for now. This does not mean rejecting every prophet and prophecy outright, as we are commanded in scripture "Do not treat prophecy with contempt but test all things. Hold fast to that which is good."
4) I would like to mention too, that scripture does mention two specific tests, though they aren't especially helpful today.
The first one was found in the Old Testament and was God telling the Israelites not to believe a prophet that said something was going to happen that then didn't. A problem with this test, though, is that to apply it, the prophecy can only mean what God intends, and this is quite often not what we think, even when it seems obvious.
For example, in John 6 Jesus told his throng of followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood if they wanted eternal life. It is easy to think now that those who left were foolish for not following Jesus when he is God, but the real message was spiritual and they could not receive it without God's enabling them to. In fact Jesus even explained this to his called disciples saying in verse 65,
"He went on to say, 'This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.' "
You see, the apparent point of his saying to eat his flesh & blood was to filter it all those who were following him for logical and fleshly reasons rather than spiritual ones.
Another possible problem with the 'Does it happen' test is that it was an Old Covenant test offered to ancient Israel who did not have Holy Spirit available for spiritual discernment. Because Holy Spirit is now available to us and we must learn how to live in fellowship with him, God is probably not as likely to give us such an easy test, though there are likely still occasions for it.
The other scriptural test comes from 1 John 4. It says that every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus came in the flesh is from God but that a spirit that denies that Jesus came in the flesh is not of God. There are a few problems with this though.
First off, how do you even apply it? Some spiritual entities will answer the question if asked, but not all of us can hear such a response, and of course we were talking about prophetic words and presumably prophets, not the spiritual source itself. Obviously a human being can lie.
Second, most people don't even understand what is being talked about here. I have personally been taught that it refers to a particular heresy from New Testament times whereby Jesus was considered to have been God but not human, or something along those lines. The significance being that Satan is trying to discredit humanity as a rival (in his mind) creation of God and doesn't like to acknowledge that Jesus conquered death in his humanity, or to put it another way, in the flesh.
Third, God has personally given my church an indication that something has changed since that passage was written by John and some dark spirits can (now?) lie. I suppose one might still be able to apply it to identify some fallen spirits that might yet deny Jesus' humanity, but it doesn't really verify a source just because they will acknowledge a truth.
Also note:
1) Satanic spirits can feel good or bad.
2) Both Satan and God can call out your sin, but Satan speaks condemnation while God speaks repentance and reconciliation.
3) If you think it is easy you don't even know enough to know what you don't know.
4) This is part of discernment, but God always does things with purpose, not for flash alone.
5) Prophecy includes a lot more than just foretelling. Fortune tellers focus on foretelling; real prophets speak of things like repentance, love, and encouragement too.
1. Know God. A person best learns to identify the counterfeit/false by coming to know the true very, very well. This is not limited to intellectual recognition, but very much includes spiritual discernment. Discernment is something one should seek from God via prayer, but it is also a skill one gets better and better at through practice. Examples of spirits are things like love, pride, victimhood, peace, etc. Obviously some of those are good and some are bad.
Coming to know God means reading one's Bible, spending time in prayer, asking God questions and being open to even surprising answers. God can use people to this end, but there is a significant difference between seeking God and having him answer through a person, and seeking a person to tell you what God thinks.
2) Know your scripture. Really, this is a continuation of the above. Knowing your scripture, though gives you something to test things against, and for Holy Spirit to bring to mind when needed. For example, one day I felt a strong spirit (roughly feels like a feeling or emotion, though they aren't the same thing) on me all day long that I couldn't identify. After many hours of crying out to God for help with identifying it and knowing what to do about it, a scripture came to mind that suddenly allowed me to identify in words what the spirit was and how vile it was. God then showed me from there what to do about it, which I won't get into here.
3) When in doubt, throw it out. If you need to know badly enough, God can bring it up again another way, so it's okay to say you don't know and you're going to let go on figuring it out for now. This does not mean rejecting every prophet and prophecy outright, as we are commanded in scripture "Do not treat prophecy with contempt but test all things. Hold fast to that which is good."
4) I would like to mention too, that scripture does mention two specific tests, though they aren't especially helpful today.
The first one was found in the Old Testament and was God telling the Israelites not to believe a prophet that said something was going to happen that then didn't. A problem with this test, though, is that to apply it, the prophecy can only mean what God intends, and this is quite often not what we think, even when it seems obvious.
For example, in John 6 Jesus told his throng of followers to eat his flesh and drink his blood if they wanted eternal life. It is easy to think now that those who left were foolish for not following Jesus when he is God, but the real message was spiritual and they could not receive it without God's enabling them to. In fact Jesus even explained this to his called disciples saying in verse 65,
"He went on to say, 'This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.' "
You see, the apparent point of his saying to eat his flesh & blood was to filter it all those who were following him for logical and fleshly reasons rather than spiritual ones.
Another possible problem with the 'Does it happen' test is that it was an Old Covenant test offered to ancient Israel who did not have Holy Spirit available for spiritual discernment. Because Holy Spirit is now available to us and we must learn how to live in fellowship with him, God is probably not as likely to give us such an easy test, though there are likely still occasions for it.
The other scriptural test comes from 1 John 4. It says that every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus came in the flesh is from God but that a spirit that denies that Jesus came in the flesh is not of God. There are a few problems with this though.
First off, how do you even apply it? Some spiritual entities will answer the question if asked, but not all of us can hear such a response, and of course we were talking about prophetic words and presumably prophets, not the spiritual source itself. Obviously a human being can lie.
Second, most people don't even understand what is being talked about here. I have personally been taught that it refers to a particular heresy from New Testament times whereby Jesus was considered to have been God but not human, or something along those lines. The significance being that Satan is trying to discredit humanity as a rival (in his mind) creation of God and doesn't like to acknowledge that Jesus conquered death in his humanity, or to put it another way, in the flesh.
Third, God has personally given my church an indication that something has changed since that passage was written by John and some dark spirits can (now?) lie. I suppose one might still be able to apply it to identify some fallen spirits that might yet deny Jesus' humanity, but it doesn't really verify a source just because they will acknowledge a truth.
Also note:
1) Satanic spirits can feel good or bad.
2) Both Satan and God can call out your sin, but Satan speaks condemnation while God speaks repentance and reconciliation.
3) If you think it is easy you don't even know enough to know what you don't know.
4) This is part of discernment, but God always does things with purpose, not for flash alone.
5) Prophecy includes a lot more than just foretelling. Fortune tellers focus on foretelling; real prophets speak of things like repentance, love, and encouragement too.
