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When I was in the USA, I knew many people who played the lottery, including multi-millionaires. I guess you can never have too much. I am sure there are more now. They dream of an endless supply of money. I had a client with about 100 employees. One of the employees brother or sister won a lottery. There were so many stories about how the family behaved after that. It was an eye-opener for many, including me. Money changes people.

American / Canadians / Australians are generous people. This is not common around the world. Many people in Asia would loan money to a relative, often with strings attached, but not to friends. In 20 years, I have never seen that. Many of our churches in Asia are built with funds from those three countries.

With this major change in leadership, comes major challenges. They need our prayers. In our dally prayers, lets lift up a specific person or team. Everyday, see if we can focus on individuals. This is our job, to be a praying people for our leaders. Local Pastors, Mission/Conference people, Union People, Division people and GC people. I know they need our prayers. It is good to be as specific as possible. Health, Spiritual Guidance, conflict resolution, Courage, Patience.

These "ceremonial" sabbaths were very connected to the agricultural cycle of the land. These were times of the year that was related to things they needed to do for their crops and local economy. Ancients felt that they not only needed to do the planting/harvesting etc. but that they needed ritual to go along with the actions as well as these ceremonies are reminders of what they need to do. These were times that the people living in the land had to focus on what was needed for the agriculture and local economy. This was especially needed for this piece of property due to the competition of the biology and weather of this "land of milk and honey" of the meeting between Europe, Asia, Africa and Arabia. (Our popular western picture of the term "milk" and "honey" were NOT what they were dealing with.) These "sabbaths" were kept by the Canaanites centuries before Abraham was even born. Now, the Canaanites ended up corrupting the understanding of these key points in the annual cycle. In trying to deal with the complicated issue of a land flowing with both milk and honey, the Canaanites developed some horrible rituals and superstitions. Since the Hebrews needed to live in this same schedule, God gave them the feasts of the land or "ceremonial" sabbaths. God was very strict as to what ritual was acceptable for the Hebrews to continue to use. God took these "acceptable" parts and changed them into not only helping with they cycle of the land and economic cycle, but to also learn truth about who HE is. God also strictly forbade other parts of how the Canaanites worshiped on these cycles. When in exile, those who were left in the land needed to observe when it was time for the feast and a chain of smoke signals were set up to notify the people in exile to at least pray for the land and the cycle. Those living in exile or otherwise outside of the land would depend on this chain of smoke signals. Sometimes people who lived along the line of places with smoke signals, knowing that the feast was approaching would send up their own smoke signal to set off the chain and thus get the Hebrews to start keeping the feast a day or so early. (This is why rabbis eventually set up ways of figuring out when the feasts should be.) While they needed the smoke signals or figuring out when to keep the feasts of the land. They did not need smoke signals for THE Sabbath. It was whenever the sun set on the 6th day wherever they were. The "ceremonial" sabbaths were the feasts of the land. THE Seventh-Day Sabbath was universal and would come to you wherever you were on earth. Those in Babylon greeted the Sabbath when the sun set in Babylon. Then when the Sun set in the land those left in the land would greet the Sabbath, and a little later, as the sun set in Egypt, they greeted the Sabbath when the sun set there. As Jews went farther west or farther east, they would greet the Sabbath when the sun set wherever they were. The feasts of the land did not have this same universality that the Seventh-Day Sabbath held. As the gospel was spread to people who were not connected either directly or emotionally to the agricultural cycle of the land, it would not make sense for them to keep these ceremonial sabbaths. We can learn the lessons about God that the feasts teach, but without being somehow connected to this local agricultural cycle, the sabbaths would not apply to our lives.

Interesting replies. They immediately go to attacking democrats as if my post was promoting democrats. The problem with you people is that you can’t pull your heads out of your false dichotomies! Our categories are not God’s categories! listen and learn: https://www.misda.org/media/news/religious-liberty-sabbath

I don't think many in America think of themselves as socialists. Although in EU and Canada, there may be SDA's who consider themselves socialists. There are many people who believe it is our duty to help others. This includes public financial assistance, immigration assistance and legal assistance. They have a large compassion for people. In how we accomplish this, is where many disagreements come in. I know many people in America on both sides of the issue. They are not bad people. They are good people with different solutions. Some are very passionate about their views.