When Are We?

THE FALSE PROPHET MUHAMMAD | home

It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.

And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day:

O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky;

but can ye not discern the signs of the times?

God sees creation from an eternal viewpoint. If we wish to understand

His plan, we need to view it from His eternal perspective. If we could

stand on a giant mountain somewhere and view our 6000+ years of

recorded history all at once, as God does, we would see a broad

completed tapestry. On that tapestry would be every event that has ever

happened, or ever will happen. Time and space are creations of God and

Isa 45:12 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even

my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have

Man, however, is bound by time and space. We are physically placed on

a material world. As time is reckoned, we are in the first decade of the

3rd Millennium AD. The Lord told us about all this in the Bible, and the

Lord partitioned his dealings with man into three separate time frames

(three different spiritual epochs), each lasting about 2000 years.

2. the era between the flood and Jesus’ crucifixion,

3. and our own Christian Era. In each of these eras, God revealed

Himself to man in a different way. In this chapter, we will focus our

attention on the time that Gentiles controlled Jerusalem, the “Time of the

This Christian Era actually began at the crucifixion, 32-33AD. Just

before He went to the cross, Jesus told His disciples what our era should

be like. Known to us as the “Olivette Discourse,” this talk was Jesus’

chapter-long prophecy about the major events to take place between the

Cross and His second coming. This discourse is recorded in the three

Gospels: in Mat 24, in Mar 13, and in Luk 21. Though these accounts all

agree, each Gospel gave us some important information that is not

(1) Mat 24:31 - Matthew states that the elect are gathered at the sound

(2) Mar 13:14 - Mark declares that the Abomination of Desolation

(3) Luk 21:24 - Luke defines the “time of the Gentiles.”

Now please study those verses in your own Bible, and consider what

Jesus had to say in each, because they strongly influence what we

believe about the seven-year tribulation, replacement theology, and a

host of other doctrines the church holds today. For instance, we hear a

lot about the dispensations of “Law” and of “Grace,” but in Luk 21:24,

Jesus defines our era in a different way, as a “time of the Gentiles”:

Luk 21:21-24 (excerpts) Then let them [the Jews] which are in

Judaea flee ... And they [the Jews] shall fall by the edge of the

sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and

Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of

So what is this “time of the Gentiles”? When Jesus spoke those

words (in 32 or 33AD), Jerusalem had already been under the control of

various Gentile governments for about 638 years.2 But the Jews troubled

1 PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Words or phrases [in brackets and italics] inserted within a

Scripture quote are this author’s explanation or amplification of a passage, usually

discernable by context. Words [in brackets and italics] are not in the original Bible texts.

2 Rome was the foreign government in control of the Holy Land during Jesus’ stay on

Earth, but Gentile control of Jerusalem began when Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon sacked

the city in 606-605BC. Gentile rule continued under Medo-Persia and Greece. The Holy

Land did not come under Roman jurisdiction until 65BC.The Jews had a short period of

self-rule under the Maccabees that began in 167BC. However, the Maccabean period does

not appear to be prophetically significant. The Davidic monarchy was not reestablished,

their foreign rulers with revolt after revolt, so in 70AD, Titus the Roman

destroyed Jerusalem and burned the 2nd temple to the ground. Jesus

foretold the destruction of the city and a time of Gentile domination of

Jerusalem to follow. Look at the tense of the verb “shall be” led away

captive. Shall be is future to when Jesus spoke.

After Titus destroyed Jerusalem, the Jews lost all control of their

homeland and they were dispersed among the nations. They remained

dispersed throughout the world until this very century. As a matter of

historic record, Gentiles have ruled Jerusalem through the 1st, 2nd, 3rd,

4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries. The 11th and 12th century

crusaders were also Gentiles. Gentiles continued to control Jerusalem

through the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries,

right on up until 1967AD. Throughout the whole Christian Era, Gentiles

have always ruled Jerusalem. “And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of

the Gentiles ... until .” As a matter of historic reality, the city of

Jerusalem did not again come under Jewish control until after the Six-

Day War, June 6th, 1967, “until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”

The only people who are not Gentiles are Jews, and as of June 6th, 1967,

the Jews again govern Jerusalem, for the first time in 2573 years. Like

Over in the Holy Land is a nation called Israel. It is filled with

a people called Jews, many of whom are looking for their

Messiah. Those people again ruling in their own land fits the

Luk 21:24 prophecy right to the letter.

Before the Six-Day War, we could argue about what the Lord might

have meant by the “time of the Gentiles,” but not anymore. From our

vantage point in history, we can see the Jews in control of Jerusalem

with our own eyes. Consequently, it is apparent that the Lord was

naming the total time of Gentile rule of His Holy City as “the Time of

the Gentiles.” Do we grasp the full impact of that prophecy? The time

of the Gentile domination of Jerusalem is over. It’s over! Gentiles will

and the Jews were continually in conflict with the Syrian Greeks. This conflict continued

until Rome conquered the Holy Land in 65BC.

not rule in Jerusalem again, and God’s eyes are again focused on the

physical seed of Abraham who have returned to their promised land and

But if the “Time of the Gentiles” is really over, when are we now?

What kind of time are we in? There must be another kind of time

because we are still here. Searching Scripture from beginning to end,

there appears to be only one other time that can come after the time of

Dan 12:4 But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book,

Dan 12:9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are

closed up and sealed till the time of the end.

Since we are no longer in the time of the Gentiles (and we have to

be in some kind of time), then we are probably in Daniel’s “time of the

end,” or the “end times” as the NASB translates it. As a result ...

We are probably the last generation this present Earth

will ever see and the end of all things is at hand.

In Dan 12:9, God declared by His sovereign Word that He sealed the

book of Daniel until the time of the end. Sealed it, which means that

nobody would be able to understand it. That doesn’t sound so earthshattering,

does it? How significant can it be that a relatively obscure

Old Testament prophet would be sealed until the time of the end? This

If the “Time of the End” began in 1967, and Daniel was sealed

until the “Time of the End,” then all prophetic views theorized

out of Daniel before 1967 would at best be incomplete, and at

Here’s the point: Most end-time views held by the Church today

were theorized from studies made in Daniel hundreds of years ago. But

if God sealed Daniel until the “time of the end,” and the “time of the

end” didn’t began until 1967, then those end-time views have to be

incomplete, or even wrong. If they are, we could be basing the last few

decisions we will ever make on this planet on theoretical events that are

never going to happen. So let’s take a look at the book of Daniel, from

which some of our popular end-time doctrines have come.