This is a commonly misinterpreted passage of scripture.
Testing the spirit or what animates someone means to test the man or the man’s word’s or the man’s teachings.
1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
Or in the case of Joseph Smith, he should have put the “angel” Moroni to the test of scripture, which that demon failed, because “Moroni” testified that the Word of God was not true!
Joseph Smith is one of the false prophets that John is warning that you are to try or test, or put to the test.
Smith and Moroni both testified that Jesus has not come in the flesh, i.e. in D and C or BOM it says that Jesus was SPIRIT when Thomas put his hands in the wounds.
Joseph Smith, false prophet.
“angel” Moroni was an angel, alright. A fallen one — a demon — sent as an “angel of light” to deceive millions into Hell.
New Agers and many of the occult groups practice this sort of thing...calling on one or more entity to confirm or inquire concerning the path their life should take...in religious matters it is all the more dangerous and leads people to rely on these enties and the expereinces they have with them...which of course is exactly their intentions...to keep a stronghold on the individual..and they do just that.
Addditionally, and which compounds the problem of dealing in the spiritual worldis, is many of these expereinces are also manufactured within the imaginations of the individual mind and are not real at all, though they appear to be so in the individuals mind.
What you see outside your brain appears to be very real, but what you are really seeing is a re-creation of the that world in your brain. You can change the perceived world within you, but that does not directly change the “outside world” regardless of you hard you want it to change. This difficult for many to accept, since there’s a sense of a loss in control. But reality is what it is…reality.
The problem I have with Momonism spirituality is that it focuses on an existence of things (manifestations) outside the body without any regard of evidence for existence, other than comments like ...“I just know this is real”....
It is important to keep in mind that past and future” do not exist outside of the brain and are actually both mental projections and are dependent upon memory.
BTW "Moroni" is a favorite in the occults.
“Smith and Moroni both testified that Jesus has not come in the flesh, i.e. in D and C or BOM it says that Jesus was SPIRIT when Thomas put his hands in the wounds”
I have never read that in either the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants.
On the contrary, we read in 3 Nephi that Jesus appeared to the Nephites in the flesh and invited the people to come to him and see.
3 Nephi 11:14 “Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.
15 And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record, that it was he, of whom it was written by the prophets, that should come.”