Back in 1973 my dear father, Dr. O. Talmadge Spence (who went to be with the Lord in July 2000), began a publication entitled Straightway. He took this word from Mark 1:18 that reads, “And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.” In this context Mark’s commentary on two of the Lord’s disciples depicts the tonal quality of his book as a part of the harmonious quartet of the Gospels. Mark’s Gospel portrays Christ as “the Mighty Worker,” rather than “the Teacher” as depicted in the book of Matthew. Mark wrote his Gospel to the Romans, a busy people, always in a hurry, working for the cause of the Empire.

The revival of Romanism in our times initially can be attributed to the modernistic changes that took place in Vatican II in the early 1960s and to the medium of the Charismatic movement in the early 1970s. One of the side effects of Romanism’s revival is the popularizing of their subtle, anti-biblical presentation of the virgin Mary. This Romanist picture of the virgin Mary is fast becoming a prominent belief among Protestants.

How often we read in the Old Testament of God's sending a prophet to a man or a woman. Examples include such cases as Nathan to David (II Samuel 11), an unnamed prophet to Jeroboam (I Kings 13), Elijah and Elisha to Ahab (I and II Kings), or Jehu the son of Hanani the seer to Jehoshaphat (II Chronicles 19). These men were God's men, anointed men, the appointed mouthpiece of God to the people. …