Are you ready to begin writing 1995 as the date for the present? It is surprising to many of us that time is so far advanced. In just five more years the date will be 2000. This makes us ask, When does the next millennium begin?
In order to be certain, we have to go back and start at the beginning of the first millennium A.D. It started with the year one. There was no year called zero. From there we readily ascertain that the year 1000 A.D. had to be completed before the second millennium could begin. The date of the beginning of the second millennium, then, was the year 1001 A.D. According to this easy way of calculating, the third millennium must begin with the year 2001 A.D. Are you surprised, or even disappointed with these figures?
Few people have ever lived to see a change of millenniums. It is now only six full years until this unusual event will happen.
If we take the first digit of the year as most significant, then the change to two instead of one will occur on January the first in the year 2000. This, of course, is one full year nearer and so it is only five years from now.
Commonly, we speak of the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ for 1000 years as the millennium. Of course, as to the Gregorian calendar that we now use, we cannot state when Christ's kingdom of 1000 years here on earth will begin.
The disciples asked Jesus in Matthew 24, "Tell us, when shall these things be?" Our Lord Jesus answered this in verses 32 to 36. "Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but My Father only." We conclude, then, that no man knows when shall be the coming of the Son of man to take His rightful place as King.
We do know that there will be many cleansing judgments preliminary to His manifestation as King of kings and Lord of lords. Also we do know that we believers of this present time, along with the whole Church and all the dead in Christ, shall be caught up to be with Him before the preliminary judgment falls upon the Christ-rejectors.
Surely "the coming of the Lord draweth nigh" (James 5:8). Does that not thrill your heart? Time moves relentlessly forward. The day of the gospel of the grace of God soon will close. Let us all who belong to the Lord Jesus Christ do as He said in Luke 19:13: "Occupy till I come." Ed.