The Lord's Delay
Prophetic vision structure and time lapse are both unique and need to be considered when correct interpretation is determined.

Rev 1:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified [it] by his angel unto his servant John:

One needs to understand the prophetic scope of the visions of the Bible prophets in order to know what "shortly" means here. If you don't then you cannot see how the Lord looks at time lapse. The decree of the 70 weeks of years for national Israel recorded in Daniel is the key for proper alignment.

The Lord will confirm and complete the balance of the time lapse for the decree during the 70th of the 69 weeks in view. The first 69 weeks of years (483 prophetic years) have lapsed and they consummated in the first century. There is one 7 year period left to confirm and complete .... it is still future today. Nothing of the last 2,000 + years is contained in the scope of the prophetic visions of the prophets including the Lord's discourse when He speaks as a prophet in the gospels and in Revelation.

The very next time lapse for the last 7 years of the decreed time for national Israel is still pending and the Lord will start it when He decides. So when He says that His return for this covenant confirmation is near, at hand, or shortly, He is following the structure of the scope of the visions. He has purposely delayed His return without revealing the start date .... no one knows the time. He has done this because He is waiting for the complete ingathering of all who will turn and be saved of His Church (both Jew and Gentile).

Once He is satisfied with the numbers He will trigger His hour of trial that will come upon the whole world for unbelief. The covenant here is not related to the Church in any way. It is the covenant of time lapse and objectives to be met for a believing remnant (part) of national Israel. These objectives are still pending. National Israel will remain in unbelief until the 70th week and then a remnant (part) of the nation will turn to the Lord.

So when He says "behold I come quickly" His perspective is based upon the allotted amount of time for the scope of the visions to run their course and it does not include any time lapse and events on the earth between the end of the 69th week and the beginning of the 70th. One will never understand Bible prophecy correctly until you understand and apply these precepts.

This is not a popular view when applied in the purest sense because much of traditional interpretation attempts to place events over the last 2,000+ years in the scope, particularly some of those that occurred during the first century like 70 A.D. and the Roman invasions of Israel. If one will re-evaluate the prophetic Scriptures (one should not include recorded historical Scriptures, but only the visionary content of prophecy) in the light of the 70 weeks of years (490 prophetic years), this will answer all questions and will harmonize all events and sequences without a flaw.

The Lord is simply stating time lapse and sequence in terms of the limited scope of the 70th weeks of years. So He moves from the 69th week to the 70th as if they were continuous. His comments related to the immediacy of His return should be understood in light of this scope. The most difficult concept of the traditional view is trying to place the Roman Empire and subsequent events in the scope of visionary prophecy. It is not there. Many different and incorrect theories have been developed as a result and it is for this reason that we have so many different divisions of interpretation today.

Rome was the next Empire after the Greek, but it is only recorded in the N.T. as a matter of historical record and not visionary prophecy. Those who put it there must do so by making assumptions. The Roman Empire is a relic of the past, is not in the scope of visionary prophecy, and will not be revived or revised during the last 7 years of this present age. There will be an end time dominion of Satan's beast, but it will most likely be in the Middle East where the visions of the Bible prophets are focused. It is not identified by name in the visions. There are five preceding dominions in the scope, all are historical, are named, and the 5th was the northern Greek rule of the Middle East.