[Rick Beam] You folks here, you are the advanced guard of those who are coming to keep the Feast in the Panama City Beach. And you know what? Because you're the advanced guard, you're going to get to have an experience. You all had an experience today that the rest of the folks that are coming aren't going to have. You didn't have to hunt for a seat. Enjoy it while it lasts. In fact, you could even play musical chairs if you want to. But we are expecting a full house. So it's going to be a very packed house later. We're going to have a wonderful Feast, wonderful Feast. The names change. The names change, but the game stays the same. What game? Let's look at Proverbs 14:12. Proverbs 14:12, a very familiar insight Scripture, insightful Scripture of the game. Has been going on for a long, long time. Proverbs 14:12.

"There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of the death." All this will work. This is great. This is good. Oh, I know this will get it done. This will work. Oh, I know what I'm doing. In fact, that is so important that God inspired it to be emphasized by, repeating again in the Proverbs here in Proverbs 16:25. Proverbs 16:25 reads the same way. "There is a way that seems right to a man." Oh, it looks so good. I mean, I got this all figured out. We know what we're doing. But the end thereof, the results, the effects, or the ways of death with literally death at the end of it.

I want to turn over to Jeremiah 10:23 because Jeremiah came to realize something. He lived long enough, and frankly, he didn't have to live long to know this. He knew this as a young man. But all we have to do is live long enough to realize and echo what he echoed here. When Jeremiah said in chapter 10 in verse 23, he said, "O Lord, I know." You know, he didn't say I think, he said, "I know. I'm convinced. I know that the way of man is not in himself, it is not in man that walks to direct his steps." He just doesn't know how to do it. History proves this hasn't changed. It's an endless repeating cycle. Current events today prove this is still the same. Man's nature, human nature is still the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow at least for a time. Yeah. The names change, but the game stays the same. And the half-sibling of Jesus Christ in James 4:1-3 touched upon this very thing. James 4:1-3, James said in verse 1, "Where do wars come from? From whence come wars and fightings or brawlings among you? Do they not come even from your lusts that war in your members? You lust, you have not. You kill, you desire to have, you can't obtain. You fight, you war, yet you don't have because you ask not. And you ask, and you receive not because you ask amiss, you missed the boat, that you may consume it upon your lust." War and the causes of war are ingrained in the human makeup. They're like intrinsic to it. We seem to be hardwired for it in our very makeup. And there is definitely something generational about it because it's an endless cycle that just keeps going over and over.

Yeah, the names do change, but the game stays the same generationally. Generationally, a generational cycle passed on from one generation to another. You have background, you have environment, you have nurturing, and it's almost like genetic. I remember, and this is probably the classic example of the generational thing, but I remember a few years ago when there was a short series. I don't remember if it was done by The Learning Channel or what, but it was a short series that was done about the famous Hatfield's and McCoy's feud, the "Hatfield-McCoy" feud and Kevin Costner starred in it. I watched it, the entire series, not because it was pleasant to watch. It was very unpleasant. It was a dark, heavy, depressing drama. But I watched it for the educational purposes. And anybody who's familiar, and of course, most people are familiar with that term, the Hatfield's and the McCoy's, but it was a generational thing and there's generational repetition that guaranteed the same and so sad because again, the names change, but the game stays the same.

Nations, they rise. They fall. Political cycles run the same course over, and over, and over. The democracy cycle, for instance, repeats itself. Now, I think most of us know that America is not a pure or true democracy. We are a republic. We elect representatives. We are a democracy, but we are a democratic republic. Let's put it that way. And I forget the exact words that Benjamin Franklin said when as he came forth after the meeting where they had hammered together, you know, the government and all and the lady on the street waiting, she said, “Sir…" something about, "Do we have our government or were you a successful at it?" And he said something like, "Ma'am, you have your republic if you can keep it." Wise old bird. Wise old bird. The seeds of democracy's destruction are sown within its own self. And we're living to see that because the democracy cycle generally can only run about 200 years approximately before it starts literally coming apart. And then geopolitics, world politics. You know, there's always this vying for power and there are people in the world, if they could be king of the world, they would be if they could have that kind of power. And it was recognized long ago that power corrupts. Power corrupts, and the statement came to be in geopolitics and it became a popular statement. Okay, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So again, the names change, but the game stays the same because if you go with me to Proverbs 3, in Proverbs 3, The names change but the game stays the same because man ignores. He ignores what Proverbs 3:5-7 says. Proverbs 3:5-7. Verse 5, "Trust in the Lord." Trust in the Lord. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” center Him in your life, orient around Him, revolve around Him, “lean not to your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Don't be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil." Man ignores that. Trust in the Lord with all his heart? Not laying to his own understanding? Well, He knows the way that it work. It's going to work. He knows what He's doing. He says, "In all your ways, acknowledge Him." I might do it in one or two ways but in all of my ways? No, no, no. I don't have to. "And He shall direct your paths.” Well, I don't really need Him directing my paths. And Jeremiah says it's not in man who walks to direct his own ways.

“Don't be wise in your own eyes.” We're smarter. The last generation blew it. We know the answers. We know how to make it work. Oh, just give us the chance. It's like certain socialists today. Oh, the socialists that have proven it doesn't work, they just didn't do it right. But give us the chance. We know how to make it work so we can make it work. It's just interesting how we see these cycles over and over. Be not wise in your own eyes. Oh, yeah. We don't have to pay attention to that. We're plenty wise. “Fear of the Lord,” what good is that going to do us? “Depart from evil.” Well, how's it your right to define what evil is? That's the attitude. That's what you run into. That's what you see. He leans to his own judgment.

So we've got a section of Scripture in Romans 3 and it kind of runs the gamut of this whole thing about this repeating cycle, this generational cycle that doesn't change. Romans 3:10-18. Romans 3:10-18. Verse 10, "As it is written: 'There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none that understands; there is none that seeks after God. They're all going out of the way, they're all together become unprofitable. There's none that does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under the lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. And their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of peace they've not known it. And there's no fear of God before their eyes.’" Doesn't that tend to describe the preponderance of human history? Doesn't that tend to lay out 6,000 years of the basic condition that's existed with man?

Folks like a title, usually. So if you want to title this, and you've probably already titled it and certainly probably figured out how I title it, I simply title this subject I'm covering, "The Names Change but the Game Stays the Same." That'll serve as a good title. See, the crucial basics of the game do stay the same. They don't change. The underlying issues, well, they remain the same. They don't change. A generation comes and a generation goes and then another one comes and goes and another one comes and goes, one after the other. And the names do change, but the basic game stays the same. This is what Solomon meant when he said what he did in Ecclesiastes 1:9-10. Let's go back there. Now, oftentimes, many times during the Feast of Tabernacles, Ecclesiastes would be read for a number of reasons, but let's go to Ecclesiastes and let's go to chapter 1 and let's read verses 9 and 10.

Solomon said, "The thing that has been, it is that which shall be, and that which is done is that which shall be done and there is no new thing under the sun. There's no anything, wherever it may be said, ‘See, this is new’? Well, it's been already of old time which was before us.” He's talking about this repeating cycle, this generational thing. In fact, let's read all of chapter 1. We'll read it pretty quickly. It's not long. Verse 1, "The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem, ‘Vanity of vanities,’” this is high starts out. “'Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher; ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, empty, not lasting, temporary.’ What profit his a man of all of his labor which he takes under the sun? One generation passes away, another generation comes; but the earth abides forever." It keeps spinning.

“The sun also rises, the sun goes down, and hastens to its place where it arose. The wind goes towards the south, turns about to the north; it whirls about continually, and the wind returns again according to its circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, if the sea is not full; to the place from whence the rivers come, there they return again. All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that has been is that which shall be, and that which is done, is that what shall be done, and there's no new thing under the sun. Is there anything where I've maybe said, ‘See, this is new’? It's been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things, neither shall there be any remembrance of things that have come with those that shall come after. I, the Preacher… I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven; this sore travail has God given to the sons of man, to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity.”

And in the King James, when you see the word vexation, it just means frustration, basically. All is vanity, temporary, empty, and frustrating. Vexation of spirit. He says in verse 15, "That which is crooked can't be made straight." There's so many things in this world, in this age, and this time that cannot be changed, cannot be straightened out “and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. That which is wanting or that which is lacking or defective.” And the Hebrew can be rendered defect or defective… “cannot be numbered. I communed with my own heart, saying, ‘Lo, I am come to great estate, and I've gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem, yet, yes, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is vexation of spirit.”

And then he says in verse 18, "For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow." Solomon is basically saying in so many words, the names change, but the game stays the same. He understood. He understood that human nature is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And he understood that things go in a continuous cycle, they run their course, and they start over. He understood that the human makeup is not intrinsically good. You know, if we notice Ecclesiastes 7:20, Ecclesiastes 7:20, he says, "For there is not a just man upon earth, that does good, and sins not." Now, I think there's more than one innuendo or meaning that you could apply to that, but let me put it this way. There's none that lives righteously without making a mistake. We all do. Even those whom God has called, who are seeking to do the right thing and doing their best to do the right thing with God's support and help through His Spirit still slip up and make mistakes.

Even the best make mistakes. Think about those who aren't even trying to do their best. But again, I go back to his statements, the one in chapter 1 verse 2, they started off with all is vanity. You know, vanity of vanities. And he talks about in verse 14 of chapter 1 about vanity and vexation or frustration. And then in chapter 12 and verse 8, chapter 12 and verse 8, when he gets into the last chapter, he kind of goes back to that same thought, doesn't he? Because he says in verse 8 of chapter 12, "Vanity of vanities, says the preacher; all is vanity." Now, Solomon was well acquainted, no stranger too. He was well acquainted with the fruits, the effects of carnal human ways. That's why I talked about that which is crooked can't be straightened and that which is defective can't be numbered. And that's also why he said there in verse 18, we read it in chapter 1 that there's much grief and much sorrow in knowledge.

In fact, I'll turn back and read it again very specifically, chapter 1 and verse 18. He says, "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow." I think this is where the saying comes from or the attitude, let's say, that, "Well, the less I know, the better off I am. Ignorance is bliss. What I don't know can't hurt me." Oh, yeah? Well, we know the answer to that. But I think that's where it kind of comes from because Solomon is saying in much wisdom is much grief and he that increases knowledge also increases sorrow. There's much grief and sorrow in really seeing the state of affairs as they really are.

Ecclesiastes 9:18. Ecclesiastes 9:18, "Wisdom is better than weapons of war." Try to convince certain world leaders in our day and time of the truth of that. They would say, "It's wisdom on my part to have the weapons of war." But notice what the next sentence says, "But one sinner destroys much good." A man can plant 100 acres or 1,000 acres of pine trees as a cash crop, 20 years later, he can start harvesting those pines, or 30 years later get good, solid timber out of it. Takes a long time to grow that forest. One arsonist with one match can burn the entire thing down just in a matter of days at the most. “One sinner destroys much good.” A man can take his guns, his ammo. He can subtly somehow slip them up to an upper-level room, secret them into the room, and then when the concert starts in Vegas, Las Vegas when the concert starts, he can open fire and kill 58 people, not to mention the hundreds that are wounded and some of them crippled and ruined for this life. And just simply bring chaos, and havoc, and pain, and suffering to hundreds if not thousands of families where things will never, ever be the same in this life. It can do that. See? Or you got classic examples of a Stalin or a Hitler who caused the death, responsible for the deaths of millions. See, Solomon pulls the covers back. He pulled the covers back. He looked underneath the surface. He looked beneath the veneer. He looked underneath. He cut through the cosmetics and what he saw, the raw realities disheartened and discouraged him.

One of the congregations I was pastoring sometime ago, there was an older lady who needed a full-time job. And the opportunity came up to get a full-time job in an office where she would basically be doing a clerical type work but it had to do with an office involving the law, involving the justice system, and part of what she was responsible for was having to file certain reports, go through certain papers and sort and put them together and file them and do this and that. And what it involved was her having to at least be aware of what these papers covered. She had worked the job a couple of weeks or so. She got the job. She'd worked that a couple of weeks and one Sabbath, she caught me at services and she said, "Mr. Beam," she said, "I don't know if I'm going to be able well to do this job." Something to that effect. "I just don't know if I can hold up because it is so depressing." She said I knew things were bad out there." She said, "I knew things were bad, but… I knew totals are bad." And she said, "But I didn't realize how bad it was." Because she was seeing beneath the covers. She was seeing beneath the veneer, what was deeper than the veneer. And believe me, it is raw and it is bad. I counseled with her. She needed the job and God strengthened her to be able to do the job. She made some adjustments in how she went about it and she was able to stay with it.

Solomon saw and he realized the names change but the game stays the same because the intrinsic goodness of man is a myth. When I hear somebody say the intrinsic goodness of man, I know, well, they mean well, but the intrinsic goodness of men is a myth. You know, Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that, if we go there and read it. And again, this is a Scripture, one of the Scriptures that I cut my spiritual teeth on. It's foundational and boy does it and has it helped me to understand the world in which I live and why so much we need that new world that's coming. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:  who can know it?” I have found that if somebody wants to do something, doesn't matter how wrong it is, doesn't matter who it hurts, if they want to do it badly enough, they can convince themselves that they have the right to do it and they do it. And that's sad. But, again, it speaks to what Jeremiah is talking about. The natural human being is very self-centered. The natural human being is very self-serving. The natural human being at his best is still so far from God. You know, God says this through Isaiah in Isaiah 55:8-9.

Isaiah 55:8-9. There are some things as we go through life and we live and we learn, that we don't have to be convinced that much of because life and the experiences around us and others, it convinces us. It shows us the truth of some of these statements. God said through Isaiah, Isaiah quoting him here, he says in verses 8 and 9 of chapter 55, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." For 6,000 years, the history of mankind, the basic game has stayed the same generational, generational, generational, cycle, after cycle, after cycle of it, only the names have changed until the final names with it bring the house down.

See, in Matthew 24:21-22, that is speaking of this repeating cycle eventually literally bringing the house down. The house is going to, on a planetary basis, crash and burn, except for one factor. In Matthew 24:21-22, it says, "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, or ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake,” the church's sake, the body of Christ's sake, the bride's sake, the ecclesia's sake, “those days shall be shortened." The house is going to crash and burn if that cycle, that final cycle of it, the biggest cycle of all is not broken. And it will be broken by those days cut short. And we know that. We've had Trumpets. We've had Atonement. We're on the practical eve of the Feast of Tabernacles. And, of course, immediately on the heels of that, the Eighth Day, the Last Great Day, what is needed, and that's what we have been looking at in this fall Holy Day season. You know, we have been looking at what the need is this fall Holy Day season and we shall continue to look at what the need is, and that is a game-changer. We've got to have a game-changer. And we know what that game-changer is. A game-changer is coming.

Again, let's read what again is such a comforting Scripture to us. That's Revelation 11:15. A game-changer is coming. Revelation 11:15, "And the seventh angel…" There's six that sound before the seventh. Six trumpets. And that seventh trumpet, which ushers in the resurrection and the seven last plagues, and that was covered on Trumpets. “The seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world…’” who have had this continuously generational cycle going on and on and just the loop, you know, running the loop, the loop, it keeps running, keeps running, keeps running. Names change, but the loop, the game, it stays the same. Now that's being broken. That's changing. "There were great voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign or rule forever and ever!’”

I probably should have said, "Please keep your finger in Matthew." I'm going back to Matthew 24:30 this time because what cuts those days short is the sounding of that seventh angel, that seventh trumpet, which does announce the return of Jesus Christ back to this earth. And so here in Matthew 24:30, it says, "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power." Absolute power. And God is not corruptible with absolute power and absolute power that's going to be the difference as a game-changer. Power and great glory. To me, there is such a wonderful section of Scripture that speaks of this and the results of it. It's in Zechariah 8:3-5. And I think how much it means to God, to Jesus Christ, the fulfilling of this, and the results of His coming back.

Zechariah 8:3-5. Can you picture God, Jesus Christ, “Thus says the Lord, 'I am returned. I have come home. I'm back.’" His heart, His mind, the zeal of the Lord for Him to be able to say, “I am returned unto Zion. And I don't come back this time to submit to being tortured and beaten, and killed. That's been done. I come back as a king to rule, to change this world, to break that cycle.” “I am returned to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem and Jerusalem shall be called a City of Truth, the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the Holy Mountain. Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘There shall yet be old men and old women,’” great grands, great grandmas, great grandpas, great grandfathers, great grandmothers “dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with a staff in his hand for very age and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls,” the great-grandkids and the grandkids playing. Not dodging behind something that hopefully can stop a bullet, but “playing in the streets thereof” simply because as it says in chapter 14 and verse 9, "And the Lord shall be King over all the earth. And that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one.” Christ will take charge and Christ is going to encompass the earth with a canopy of peace and power. And under and within that protective cover, he is going to deal with the individual at an individual level.

Read with me Jeremiah 31:31-34. Jeremiah 31. Getting in verse 31, chapter 31. "Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with our fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke. Although I was a husband to them, says the Lord." This is Jesus Christ speaking here on behalf of the father. "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” We'll have a relationship. “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know Me. They shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Such is going to be a game-changer.

Ezekiel 36, Ezekiel 36:26-28. Ezekiel 36:26, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep My judgments, and do them." Christ's presence on the planet, this planet, and the pouring out of His Holy Spirit is going to be a game-changer. Such will make all of the difference. What a hope! What a hope! What a hope for mankind and the planet? What a tremendous encouragement even though mankind at large is not aware of it? But you are and I am. And their awareness of it or not doesn’t… you know, it's not dependent on it being set up, the kingdom through Christ, by whether others are aware of it or not. They're unaware of it, but also, brethren, what a hope for us? The ecclesia, the Church, the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, not just in terms of the game-changer that is coming from mankind and his nature and the conditions of the planet, but for us right now, in the meantime, because for us, for you and me, for us, the game-changer has already begun. It began with our calling. It got truly underway with our response called repentance that resulted in baptism and the receiving of God's Holy Spirit. What God will later do for the world and mankind through Jesus Christ, He is already doing for you and me.

The game-changer, the game-changing is already actively in place and process with us. What God is doing with us, especially as we yield to Him, is a real game-changer. We're being changed. We're being transformed. We're being renewed. And all of this game-changing is possible because God has made us a new creation in Jesus Christ. For us, with us, the game is changing. The game is changing because God has involved us now. I think to myself, "Here I am at the Feast of Tabernacles again." Been doing this for 50 something years. Every year, I leave with a greater vision of the future and a greater zeal to be a part of that future. And also leave with a greater appreciation to God for granting me the opportunity in this age to be a part of the firstfruits, to be trained, to be changed for the game-changing to take place with me now.

And, you know, you and I can show our appreciation for that fact by making the most of the opportunity it affords. We can really invest ourselves. And Holy Day wise, Holy Day season-wise, we have the greatest opportunity in terms of time and volume with all the messages, everything that's coming up during the Feast to really partake, to make that information, that understanding, that knowledge as much an intrinsic part of us as we possibly can. Let's really invest ourselves in the game-changing opportunity that God has given us. Be making the personal changes we each need to, and in so doing, we are preparing for that kingdom that we're going to picture for seven days and then, of course, also that Eighth Day, that Last Great Day. And in so doing, we will be ready to sit with Christ when He returns and sets His kingdom up as assistant game-changers. May you folks have a wonderful Feast that's coming up.