The fulfillments in Revelation (and Daniel) identifying apostate Romanism began in the 5th century, and continued to their primary culmination in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th-17th centuries.
Primarily in the past, but of great prophetic relevance and significance to the true Church over those centuries, and to today.
Even this view simply bypasses Chapter 1.
1. "to show his servants what must soon take place" (Verse 1)
This is different to the normal 'Jesus is coming back soon' and 'Today is the day of salvation' call. This is specific. Soon TAKE PLACE. Particular things are about to happen, and John wants to write about them.
2. "blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it" (Verse 3)
That is, he wants them to meditate on it and obey it. How do you obey something written about and to people thousands of years later? Forget that - how do you even understand it? Imagine getting this message?
"On Mars most red in the year 4000 AD, the Zorg will Zazzle the Marines in Valles Marineris - and the smoke will rise to the heavens." Now obey this! See, if the command is not to you or about you - you cannot obey it. Period. There's nothing to take to heart, nothing to understand about you and your suffering. So how on earth do you obey this? You can barely even comprehend it - and even if you could - it's not to your and your situation or even about you. John's generation couldn't obey it. Not only that,
what good has it been for the church for the last 2000 years - it's not about or to them - so how do they benefit? If anything makes me reject futurist readings of Revelation it is that it would render the majority of Revelation as utterly useless to Christians across the last 2000 years - and do nothing except confuse us and make us argue. That's simply NOT in the mission statement of Scripture as we read it in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
3. "because the time is near." (Verse 3)
How many times does John have to say it in the one chapter for futurists to understand? I know it's exciting if Revelation is about us and our times. But surely there's a bit of narcissism in wanting it to be all about us? Surely there's a bit of a Messiah-complex we have as well, where WE want to be the ones that decode it FOR REAL THIS TIME (unlike the 10,000 other failed predictions and timelines out there). I think many of us want to be like Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies - full of certainty and dreadful purpose for the next few years. Fun movies - but give me a break! We are meant to be driven by Jesus' mission for the world - not endless arguing over our own navel gazing about what Revelation 'means to us'.
4. "I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus." ( ESV - Verse 9)
John is already in the tribulation. It's already started - and John wants them to understand what to do ('endure with patient endurance' - a catchphrase through out the book - HINT HINT!) and what it means that God's chosen children should suffer like this. He wants them to obey it for real - because he's right there with them.
