FWIW, I was born into Mormonism. It was something over which I had no control. But I can say with assurance that the Holy Spirit led me while I was a Mormon. He eventually led me away from Mormonism and I can say with assurance that he has brought me to where I am today.
A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. (Psalms 23:1-2 KJV)
If the Lord is your shepherd he will lead you beside the still waters. You'll get there as long as you let HIM lead.
Frankly, I don't know what all this fuss is about. No one is saying that Catholics are not being led by the Holy Spirit, but they seem to insist that everyone else is being led by the devil. If there is a schism in Christianity it is because the RCC insists that it, and it alone, is the arbiter of truth. IMO, those who make that contention leave no room for the working of the Holy Spirit.
Some of our Catholic friends seem to think that we protestants have no unity of fellowship, which, of course, is nonsense. When your focus is on Christ, then you have fellowship will all believers who are so focused. When your focus is on your particular sect or church, then you have no fellowship with those who are not so focused.
P-M, you talk like all we need is "focus on Christ", but then you think JWs and Mormons are in error for not recognizing the deity of Christ and for falling (in some sense) into the error of Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism. So your right hand seems to be unaware of what your left hand is doing. You pretend like its all just "Jesus", but if we scratch a little deeper, we find that you have theological criteria that must be met. Which is it: just "focus on Jesus", or does true faith require affirming some further theological propositions (i.e. the Nicene Creed)?
-A8
To God be the glory!
The Fuss, P-Marlowe, is that Christ says narrow is the road and Protestants insist it is as wide as it can get. Nothing is true except the "inner leading" of the Holy Spirit. With dear sisters like Alamo-Girl, you could be sactrificing babies in some Mayan ritual and claim "inner leanings of the Holy Spirit." That's what adiaireton8 had in mind when he asked her does infanticide qualify as bring led by the Spirit?
The broad road proposed by non-catholics is one of limitless allowance that as long as you believe in anything in the name of Christ as your Savior you are on the right path, no matter which road you take. It is the ultimate relativism that only someone interested in diluting the truth could wish; it's an anything goes religion.
The serpent used the same tactic in the Garden of Eden. He introduced doubt, and relativism. Eventually Eve was convinced that she and Adam will not die, as the serpent managed to get her to doubt God Himself! She was convinced that she was doing the "right" thing, and that becoming "just like gods" was okay, that disobeying, worse -- doubting God was reasonable.
Why would God want 33,000 different denominations? Why owuld God want some Baptists to be Calivinsits (Reformed) and deny free will, while others don't? Why would he want Presbyterian Calvinists to be 'baby splashers" and Baptist Calivinists not? Why would he want Mormons, a pagan cult masquerading as "Christianity," to believe in three separate "gods," preach that God the Father used to be a mortal man, or that Jesus' borther is none other than Satan himself? Who would be better served with such religion: God or the devil? I think the answer is clear.
I can't say whether Spirit led you out of Mormonism or not, but if you were ever a Mormon in your heart then you believed that God the Father used to be a man and had a beginning, and you had to the Holy Trinity but believed in three gods, and you had to believe that Satan is Jesus' "brother," and many other things Mormons believe. If you ever were a Mormon in your heart, it was the Spirit leading you astray even if, as a Mormon you were professing Christ as your Savior.
Christ is potentially everyone's Savior. But in order to come to Chirst, we need the correct path and that correct path is the correect, orthodox faith He dleivered, not anyone's fancy. Through Him, anyone can be saved, but not through false religions no matter how much they call on His name and on the Holy Script. Christ delivered the Faith and the authority to his Apostles and through the Apostolic sucession that faith and that authority continue unchanged. He did not give everyone a bible and said "just read it; it's perspicuous."