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Because that would mean the millenial reign began in 70 AD. Thus, after the sack of Jerusalem in 70 AD . . .

You're reading Revelation far too literally. Revelation is the "unveiling" - i.e. it shows the spiritual reality of the things that were manifested in time. It draws the veil of time and space away from the events that led up to Christ and His ministry and how all of that relates to our salvation. Now, the spirit world exists outside of time. So, in Revelation, Satan is always cast out of Heaven into hell by Michael the Archangel, Christ the King is always victorious over His enemies, and the Wedding Feast of the Lamb is celebrated every day in the traditional Christian churches as the Eucharist.

The prophetic books of the Bible use allegorical and symbolic languages to explain the ineffable. Michelangelo does the same thing - God, Who Jesus says is "pure spirit" - is depicted as an old man with a beard. Does that mean that Catholics believe that God really is an old man with a beard? Of course not. In the same way, the authors of these books, inspired by the Spirit, had to explain to us who are bound in time and space things that exist wholly outside our experience.

Revelation is not some encoded blueprint for the future. It describes in human language the eternal world that always has existed, always does exist, and will exist forevermore.

I don't mean to be unkind, but the whole Rapture thing is really an adolescent's reading of inspired texts. It would be akin to letting a bright junior high student read Shakespeare without some guidance. You're coming to patently absurd conclusions. And you're discrediting the cause of our Lord by making this silliness a centerpiece of Christian theology.

I will say no more, except that when will one of these end times preachers get something right? Hal Lindsay has been felling entire forests publishing his particular brand of drivel for the past 40 years or so. I read the Late Great Planet Earth when I was a kid back in the 70s. The founding of Israel in 1948 kicked off the Big End Times Countdown, you see. Armageddon was upon us - it's "clearly" set forth in Scripture. And the end time players were discernible - the Soviet Union was symbolized by some animal that appears in Revelation. The strange insects were Soviet helicopters, for Pete's sake. I mean really. What Christian could take this stuff seriously? And note well that none of it - and I mean zero - cam true.

Here's the point: if that's not false prophecy, then I don't know what is.

Indeed, given how often the whole Rapture crowd has been wrong, and in view of how they soldier on despite being wrong time after time after time, aren't they making themselves candidates for Revelation's church of the False Prophet?

Maybe it's time for the reset of Christendom, like the slain prophets in Revelation, to shout at the church of Hagee, Lindsay, et al "come out of her, my people."

“Revelation is not some encoded blueprint for the future. It describes in human language the eternal world that always has existed, always does exist, and will exist forevermore.”

Except that, it (and Matthew) are read as exactly such an encoded blueprint for events that would occur up until 70 A.D. Nero was the antichrist. The tribulation was the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple etc. But after the destruction of the Temple, the events related in Revelation have to be metaphor according to exactly the same people. I don’t see that either interpretation is so clear that one is driven to a single conclusion. Assuming that the Lord jumped from event type prophecy to pure metaphor seems a leap of convenience rather than anything compelled by scripture.

“I don’t mean to be unkind, but the whole Rapture thing is really an adolescent’s reading of inspired texts.”

I deliberately said nothing about the Rapture in my post. Paul’s language in Thessalonians is also not so clear that one is driven to a single conclusion. He could be talking about a rapture type event. He could be talking about the Resurrection before final judgment. Certainly many fine scholars from many denominations agree with you. The Lord knows the true answer. I do not. Someday, the true answer may be as obvious to me as it is to you.

But I don’t think it much matters much how either of us come out on these issues because Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man, and Messiah died for our sins and was resurrected on the third day and because I daily accept that gift of forgiveness with the help of the Holy Spirit. He will come again to judge the living and the dead and His Kingdom will have no end. Most of the rest is detail. So I’m content with however my Lord chooses to end things and begin everything anew. In fact, somedays I’m even eager to see how He works it all out.

I suspect that, in retrospect, we will all be as surprised as was Paul when he discovered the Messiah had different plans than did almost every second temple Jew for His kingdom. They were so sure scripture told them it was going to be one way. And they were wrong.