Will the Book of Revelation happen in our lifetime?

Question from the youth group to the church elders: Do you suspect what is prophesied in Revelation will happen in our lifetime and if not then when?

The book of Revelation is very hard to interpret. The main themes are clear, like the victory of God, the defeat of Satan, the hope of the saints and the despair of the lost. If you were a 1st century Christian facing persecution from Rome, this book would have given you great comfort. However bad Caesar’s soldiers and lions were, Christ was coming soon and all the powers of this world and hell don’t have a chance against him.

But Christians differ wildly on how to pin down exactly what the symbols mean and where the timeline of the book fits into world history. So I’ll give you a few standard options, then I’ll tell you what I think.

There are four basic views:

• Futurist – The book talks about events that are still in the future for us. They will all happen at the end of this world.
• Preterist – The book talks about events that were in the immediate future for 1st century Christians, but are largely in the past for us. Much is about the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.
• Historicist – The book talks about the history of the church over the centuries, including major conflicts like the persecution by Rome, the spread of Islam, the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, etc. 
• Idealist – The book is not talking about historical events at all, past, present or future. We should read it as a story and pull out the spiritual themes.

So, what am I? I’d consider myself a "partial preterist", but I’m unclear how partial I am. I think in chapters 13 and 17 John is talking about current events in the Roman world with thinly veiled language. The original readers would have understood the Roman Caesars he was calling out.

Next, I think the Great Prostitute of chapter 17 may be a symbol of unbelieving Judaism, which hints that chapter 18 is the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, not the destruction of a future world system. Check out 11:8 which clearly identifies "the great city" with Jerusalem, not Rome.

However, I’m still a futurist for other parts of the book, especially at the end. I think chapter 20 talks about the church age which is still ongoing and chapters 21 and 22 are still in the future. And for that, I would follow Jesus’ words, "Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come." It could be very soon, even in our lifetime.