Q:

Server time is off by 5 minutes

I need to create a cron job to run a script.  Changed the server timezone to Eastern following the first option in this guide.  The timezone was changed successfully but when I run date I'm noticing that the time is about 5 minutes ahead of time.gov (and my local machine).  
Any idea what is causing this and how I can fix it? 

A:

You want to setup NTP. 
See:
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/set-time.html
Extra content here.