Ross Ross Bettis yes sir you are the newest member of First Methodist Hobbs so very happy
to get a chance to talk to you and have you tell us a little bit about yourself okay and
I think you told me you've been here since 2016 2014 yes in Hobbs so tell us a little
bit about yourself we have something in common okay we've both been Wesley Foundation directors
yes so that's near and dear to my heart campus ministry at Mississippi State was it Alabama
State Alabama State in Montgomery Alabama yes all right so tell us a little bit about
yourself well I consider myself a displaced southerner okay was was raised and bred in
Tuskegee Alabama born in in Indiana though my dad was pursuing his PhD and my mother
her masters okay and so was born there in West Lafayette home hospital if anybody went
to Purdue they those things should rain familiar and then we went back to Tuskegee because
my parents met while my dad was teaching at Tuskegee my mom was a student okay and grew
up there went to high school there ended up going to University of Alabama transferred
back to Tuskegee and graduated from Tuskegee so a proud alumnus of Tuskegee University
joined the National Guard unit got activated as a junior I think I was a junior so I went
to Desert Storm in 1990 1991 as a a private first class I think came back graduated got out of the
military got back in but I said that I'd never go to another war as an enlisted person I'd have to
go as an officer so went to OCS as as things always kind of work out for me the first thing
that happens is my unit gets activated to go to Afghanistan so this is 2004-5
went to Afghanistan things worked well we advanced the purposes of the the commander-in-chief the
president at the time tried to get out of the military but before I got out got activated
again to go back to Afghanistan this time was a little bit different because before the tour
was over the operations officer said hey Betis we want you to go to Africa and I said I'm not
really thinking about going to Africa and then I asked why would you consider me and he says well
you know our first boots on the ground we want to kind of introduce the Michigan National Guard
to the Liberians and assist in rebuilding the armed forces of Liberia so 2010 through 12 I was sent to
West Africa on a diplomatic mission at the U.S. Embassy and I worked directly with the armed forces
of Liberia as well as the humanitarian assistance officer for AFRICOM so that went went back to Fort
Benning went to campus career course passed the bar exam came to New Mexico and probably as many
you plan to come here for maybe two three years and next thing you know you've been here 10 years
Rio G.N. where'd you go to law school at Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing Michigan okay yes sir
2003 graduated in 2007 and then passed the bar in 2014 okay and as a military person you kind of
think of the DA's office as basic training and so this was considering the economy in Michigan
the Lee County District Attorney's office needed some people and I had some alumnus
alumni that were here and so packed up the U-Haul and came from Michigan to Hobbs now I didn't
realize it's going to get into a conversation with the DA should I be careful about what I say
well no because I'm no longer a district attorney oh good okay I don't think you have any issues
all right so how did tell me about your Wesley Foundation experience
yes so that goes back to maybe 98-99 my mother my family were members of the Bowen United Methodist
Church in Tuskegee Alabama and the pastor Robert Spicer was kind of threw himself into the
community and he was actually the was the foundation director at Tuskegee okay well a few
years advance I get married moved to Montgomery Reverend Spicer is at Metropolitan United Methodist
Church now in Montgomery and again as he always does he throws himself into the community and
I had joined Metropolitan with Pastor Spicer and he said Ross I need somebody to do the Wesley
Foundation here in Montgomery and he was familiar with me I was actually licensed to preach in the
Baptist Church okay not all of Missionary Baptist Church and then ordained in another Baptist Church
and had preached for him and he was a very good friend of mine and I was a very good friend of
Baptist Church and had preached for him many times at Bowen United Methodist and so when I was in
Montgomery I was teaching and he said I need somebody and it was kind of perfect for me to
go and spend time with the college students spreading the word and we fed them every week
and I know they look forward to that but we actually we didn't baptize anybody but we did
get a lot of people to join and I think there were a few candidates for baptism out of that but we had
a wonderful time just loving on the the kids through the Wesley Foundation at Alabama State
University. Wow. Yes sir. Great years huh? Yes yes. Okay one thing about Tuskegee because I have a
sermon that I do on George Washington Carver. Really? On prayer. Wow. Okay so Tuskegee started
by Booker T Washington right and he recruits George Washington Carver to come and help him
run the school. Yes. So I always teach on prayer the power of prayer because George Washington
Carver wasn't a pastor but in his field where he was trying to help poor black farmers
grow cotton teaching them to rotate their crops from cotton to peanuts
right right because peanuts fertilize the soil but there wasn't a market for peanuts right so
he goes into the lab legend has it and he prays yes and so as the story goes this is
properly embellished but I like telling it he prays God show me the mysteries of the universe
and God says no that's too big for you he goes show me the mysteries of planet earth
sorry that's still too big for you okay he says lastly can you at least show me the mysteries of
the peanut and so God says that I can do but he would start off praying God would answer
and God will disclose things that will help you solve problems in the world and I want to teach
people this principle because this principle applies to everyone you know so uh interesting
interesting story well there the national park service has a George Washington Carver museum
and I'd recommend that everybody uh go there is that in Missouri no that's in Tuskegee on the
campus of Tuskegee University uh because you can hear some audio of uh Dr. Carver as he tells some
of these stories and uh he created 400 different products out of the peanut which is just mind
boggling it is and he shares those things and he says exactly what you said he'd go into the lab
without paper and he would talk to God and God would lead and guide him uh as the Holy Spirit
does that's the Holy Spirit's job to lead and guide and uh he would create these props these
these different crops and different products and uh share those with the the farmers and uh so that
you know blacks could become um self-sufficient uh and that kind of goes into the bigger Booker T.
Washington story of cash your buckets down uh where you are um you know when they were teaching
trades brick laying you know most of the buildings were built by the students um so yeah that kind of
gets you into that Tuskegee thing but yeah Dr. Carver is an amazing man uh he was uh sterile he
couldn't have children because of I think the plantation owner uh did something to him so he
had a very high voice and uh he was able to focus and and maybe that's why uh his focus allowed him
to really dedicate himself and talk to God and create all those different products that you know
just benefited farmers and people in the south isn't it true that he lived on basically nothing
and so when he died he had this pretty substantial amount of money that he had saved
which is just a powerful testimony you know it is it said that he never cashed any of his checks
uh he just stacked them up or put them in the bank or in a sector deposit pocket or someplace
because he didn't even he lived off the land amazing story yeah yeah it really is well I had so you
had texted me what was it Wednesday night yes sir and you were asking me some questions yes and
whenever people are asking me good questions I'm like we need to record this because these are
questions that everyone is asking and they just not everyone goes the next step you know so I
always like to record these and share them not only because hey introduce you to the congregation
new church member right uh I found out you can preach now so oops uh but just want to uh
share this conversation with as many people as we can because these things that we're discussing a
lot of them are new uh I talk about things in different ways yes and so uh well you know
John 14 uh was the the the scripture that I shared and you said hey we ought to do this in a podcast
but you had met with um um what's the principal's name Debbie Debbie and talking about uh heaven and
earth being here and what God would do and so John 14 made me want to just ask you some questions
because uh in it Jesus talks about I'll go to prepare a place for you for you that where I am
you may be also in my father's house there are many mansions and if it were not so I would not
have told you so that kind of the implications of John 14 are of another place that Jesus is going
yep um to prepare a place for us and then that really got my mind going because I found one two
three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven eleven verses that made me think about this fact
that uh the lowest prayer our father in heaven so the father's in heaven we know that Jesus
sit at the right hand of the father and before Jesus left he said that I won't leave you
comfortless but the father will send you another that being the holy spirit so uh my question is
these scriptures imply another place so what kind of with Debbie's questions um
um what's what's the response or what can we learn from that to kind of understand if the
father is in heaven Jesus sit at the right hand and the holy spirit is here with us to lead us
and to guide us into all truth the holy spirit knows the the the heart of God the mind of God
and to uh teach us uh the the ways of God so what's this other place that John is implying okay so
as a believer we believe in an unseen realm yes right it's populated by all kinds of beings
in the spirit realm yes uh now I believe if you go back to Genesis chapters one through eleven
through eleven those two realms were originally one reality okay so in Genesis for instance it
talks about God walking in the garden in the cool of the day you've got this serpent which represents
a for lack of a better term angelic being that is interacting with the humans so at one point
we had these two realms the unseen realm and the physical realm were one reality right okay uh and
that tells us how we're going to think about the future so to comfort everyone what you said is
absolutely correct yes so if a person dies their consciousness their spirit which is the immaterial
part of our being and that's probably not a good phrase but it's the best vocabulary I can come up
with right the bible says to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord in this unseen
realm okay now uh if you look at the end of the story so revelation the end of revelation is a
reflection of the garden of Eden okay okay and so you've got in Revelation 20 22 you've got
basically John describing the garden of Eden you've got the tree of life right right for the
healing of the nations now the tree of the knowledge of good and evil isn't mentioned
so we have a garden of Eden minus that
whatever that is I believe it it's again it represents a choice you can either do things
God way God's you can either do things God's way or do things your own way and so that temptation
will no longer be present it's going to have been eradicated to not live in obedience to God
but then go back a couple of chapter one chapter Revelation 21 the picture that's being painted
is that that place Jesus is preparing isn't staying in the unseen realm it's coming to the
earth remember there's this picture of this beautiful city prepared as a bride beautifully
adorned for her husband and it's coming down out of heaven to the earth and so the plan for God is
to reunite those realms that have been brought into disharmony through the fall uh and if you
look at the story of scripture I always say the big story of scripture is the kingdom of God that's
the main thing of script theme of scripture one of the other main themes of scripture is that God's
desire has always been to live on the earth with his people that's what the garden of Eden represents
that's what uh the old testament tabernacle represents in and with the the Egypt with the
Egypt whenever they're wandering in the wilderness the the Hebrew people the the kabod the glory of
God is manifesting in that tabernacle right that's the presence of God among his people
that's what the old testament temple is about right and ultimately that's what the person of Jesus
Christ is about so John chapter one in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the
word was God he was in the beginning with God by him all things were created without him nothing
was made that has been made in him was life and that life was the light of men the light shines
in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it so Jesus Christ is God in the flesh living on
the earth with human beings now you take it to take the next step uh I don't know if it's first
or second Peter we are living stones the new testament church the people of God are living
stones and clearly it's comparing us with the old testament temple we are being built into a house
for God to live in on the earth and so the final iteration of that will be uh revelation 21 and the
eternal state both of those realms reunited us living with God on the earth forever in
in this amazing place you know so I think that um that's beautiful now so that when I said that's
beautiful that takes me to another scripture eyes have not seen nor have ears heard what God prepared
for them that love him so I think that's kind of what you're talking about in revelation where this
unseen beautiful city will uh in the end come and be here on the earth yep all right so
and I think uh Debbie kind of touched on this a little bit I think she touched on the rapture
just a little bit because the the the Bible uh is it this alone is um first this loony for 16 um
the Lord God himself will come down from heaven with the loud command with the voice of the arch
angel and with the trumpet call of God and the dead in Christ will rise first 17th verse after that
we who are still alive are and are left will be caught up together with him in the clouds
um to meet the Lord in the air and so we will be with the Lord forever
so we're caught up with him in the air the dead come up first in the resurrected bodies
I guess in the moment in a twinkling an eye will be changed into our resurrected bodies
which I guess it's just like Jesus when he uh after he was raised from the dead he ate honeycomb
I think he had one of the disciples put his hand in his side and he showed them the scars
um and so then we're gonna then come back to earth but what about the tribulation the seven years
the tribulation um are we here for the tribulation it's getting hot in here
whoa that's too deep well so you know how controversial this topic is are you familiar with
how controversial this is you can trigger people with this really yeah christians
so what we're talking about is when is the rapture of the church gonna happen
okay and uh so yes this is a very hot button topic but those are the precisely the topics types of
topics I like to talk about so uh so there will be a the bible predicts several things about the
time frame before the return of Jesus Christ okay we assume that the things the bible describes will
be fulfilled literally in history the reason we assume that is because the first coming of Jesus
the things prophesied in the old testament were fulfilled literally in history things like Jesus
riding on a donkey uh Jesus being born in Bethlehem right these were all written about in the old
testament and they will they were fulfilled literally so why would it be any different with
the second coming of Jesus it won't right it's gonna work the same way yes sir so the bible predicts
a time of trouble like the world has never seen yes I've said this many times on sunday morning
the number one thing we're warned about is deception walking in deception and it will probably be
political deception political and economic deception okay uh there will be a figure
described as the anti-christ now there have been anti-christ throughout history and the bible says
there will be many anti-christs but there's going to be one final man of sin that is empowered by
satan to take control of the nations of the earth okay and the point of that is to satan is currently
in control of the governments of the earth he wants to keep control of the governments of the
earth he will know when the time is getting near and he's going to fight like crazy to keep from
losing control of the nations of the earth and so that's going to describe a seven-year
time of tribulation now the first three and a half years of that time of tribulation will look really
good it's going to be a time of massive peace and prosperity uh anti-christ will bring massive
blessing he will be able to solve really unsolvable problems one of those problems will likely be the
problem uh in the middle east with is the nation of israel okay so the anti-christ will be able to
be the problem uh in the middle east with the nation of israel okay being where they're at
interestingly enough most of the early church fathers thought the anti-christ would come from
the jewish tribe of dan so fun fact for you uh but there is absolutely zero data in scripture
that would suggest that there's going to be a secret coming of jesus christ where he raptures
the church out of the great tribulation then he returns to heaven before finally coming to the
earth again okay there is and you read it the resurrection from the dead yeah the translation
of our bodies to an eternal body in the return of jesus christ all happened at the same time
now that is consistently taught in the scripture in the gospel of markets taught in matthew 24
uh and i can edit these in whenever i do the video so the the scriptures will be on the screen
matthew 24 jesus says immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will
go dark the the moon will turn to blood all these things will happen um
um and the angels will will gather the people to jesus and so the rapture of the church
the greek word is harpazzo uh we get the word rapture from the latin translation of the new
testament rapio or something like that uh but it means caught up yes so clearly it's a biblical
principle uh so the this is drawn from something that would have been common knowledge in the
greco-roman world so whenever a dignitary from say the roman government would come to visit a city on
a diplomatic mission there would be a delegation of people that would come out from the city and
escort him in and so you see this with uh the triumphal entry of jesus jesus is entering jerusalem
on a donkey and he has this delegation that's out there praising him as he's going into the city and
then they escort him into the city and so this is the picture that's the first coming of jesus to
jerusalem it's like a dramatic dress rehearsal of the second coming of jesus it's going to work the
same way the rapture is going to be jesus gathering his own to him identifying his leadership
as he approaches jerusalem to take over okay and of course all the armies that are gathered there
to stop him he's going to obliterate right uh as he rescues the jewish people from
the the persecution of the antichrist so the rapture of the church the return of jesus christ
and the resurrection from the dead all happen at the same time at the last trumpet which you'll
find in revelation chapter 11 i believe if you read revelation chapter 11 uh it's going to describe
what that scenario looks like somewhat okay um and of course that's the blessed hope of the church
right there yes yes yes well thank you for that and you said this with uh debbie um a lot of
christians kind of live in this uh kindergarten or preschool understanding and it's because we don't
talk about it and i this is the thing you see that's this is a little bit of a soap box of mine
because it's really not their fault right so you've grown up united methodist and you probably
you've been around enough to know that most pastors
preach readers digest stories and sprinkle in a few bible verses right and so this is kind of
standard operating procedure uh and so they haven't really been taught these things right
right you know so it to me it's it's a failure on my profession's part not so much uh the churches
okay so yeah yeah well that's that's interesting um you know and talking with debbie you talked
about kind of how what we're doing now is we're preparing ourselves to um be ready to rule with
jesus winning returns and i agree with that 100 um i don't i don't think that our churches
should be adult daycare centers um i think that we're here for business serious business amen
uh and and and i am delighted and i shared with you a little bit you know why i joined when i joined
i am delighted to to be here uh i'm a a man always under authority uh as a believer um and you know
you as an under shepherd jesus as a shepherd god as uh god i'm just god staff person yeah
well and so look forward to to learning and and you know i spent some time in the scriptures today
um for this and and and i appreciate that and got probably another hundred uh questions but um i
think this was was excellent and i i understand exactly what you're saying and i think it is
completely consistent it puts some things together for me so i thank you well i have enjoyed it
and i definitely want to do it again yes sir so i have so debbie she'll like sit in the the
the pole or the pews and she'll take notes about things she wants to discuss later so we do it
about every other week but okay i'd love to do it on a regular basis yes sir you know and uh i
definitely will probably want you to preach for us sometime yes sir what would be my uh my joy
and privilege um i'm in a different season a new season for me uh i'm learning that all
things work together amen for the good of them that love the lord and are called according to
his purpose and i got saved in the the northern saudi arabia desert i i assume we're in saudi
arabia we may have been in southern iraq um but um i just want to be a vessel amen that god can
use and so i've really dedicated my life to going wherever he wants me to go doing whatever he
wants me to do um and uh i think that i'm in hobs for a reason and have been here 10 years for a
reason i may have thought it was one thing i think god is showing me that it may be a completely
different reason and so um let me help maybe contribute to that i recommend reading the
perucia series on the foundrypress.org because i do think that god has plans for places like this
uh as the chaos continues to increase in the nations so the bible predicts satan is going
to be given control of the nations he will use that control to heavily persecute jews and christians
to uh implement a evil agenda i believe people are going to flee from that and look for safe places
and so places like hobs that's you know you talk about from a major city which is going to be the
main control centers we're a long ways away i don't consider lubbock a major city i don't
consider midland odessa a major city places like dallas albuquerque san antonio uh so i believe
places like this will be an area of refuge and god did that before the first coming of jesus
and so that perucia series is telling that story how do you spell that perucia p a r o u s i a
and perucia is just a fancy word for the coming of jesus okay and you said that's on which the
foundrypress the foundrypress the foundrypress.org yeah which is where you have your yep okay
foundrypress.org okay all right ross we'll do this again all right so keep thinking and uh
asking questions yes and we'll have another one of these conversations
okay i'll look forward to it thank you all right amen yes