Changing Times

Posted by pshrader

The other day I ran across something that I wasn’t aware of. In most new text books in this country the year is designated with CE or BCE instead of AD or BC. CE stands for “current era” and BCE stand for “before current era”. AD is the abbreviation for “Anno Domini” in Latin or “the year of our Lord” in English and BC stands for “Before Christ”. The use of CE and BCE is more widespread than I could have imagined. A Google search for “2007 CE” returned 1,800,000 hits and “2007 AD” returned 1,940,000 hits (I know the correct notation is AD 2007, but most people put the AD after the year). That’s 48% of the hits are using CE verses AD. It has become more “politically correct” to use CE so as not to offend non-Christians.

I’m going to ask you to bear with me for a minute and I maybe out in left field on this, but let’s see what Scripture has to say. In Genesis chapter seven we see that time is kept by the age of the patriarch. Gen 7:11 “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” Once again we see this in chapter eight. Gen 8:13 “And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry.” So it seems that the Lord’s way of conveying what year something takes place is to use generations. Luke gives us the generations from Adam to Jesus. In fact the last generation recorded in the Bible is the generation of our Lord. Jesus, speaking about the last days, tells us in Mathew 24:34 “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” Most scholars will say that Jesus means that the generation that sees the beginning of these events will not pass until it sees the return of our Lord, but are we sure we have it right? Jesus speaks of the destruction of the temple as well as the end of world. The temple was destroyed almost two thousand years ago and we are eagerly awaiting Jesus’ return today.

Daniel, when speaking of the antichrist, tells us in chapter 7 verse 25 “He will speak against the Most High and oppress his holy people and try to change the set times and the laws.” Daniel does not tell us that he will change the set times, but try to change the set times. Jesus tells us that this generation will not pass until his return. Could the set times that Daniel speaks of and the generation Jesus speaks of be one in the same? If so, could the sudden change in the way we keep track of the years be an attempt to change the set times? If it is, could this mean we are about to witness the events of the last days? Daniel tells us that after the antichrist’s attempt to change the times the saints will be handed over to him for three and a half years. Are you ready for the tribulation and Jesus’ return?