Yes, it is looking more and more to me like Jesus was the "Prince of the [NEW] Covenant", who by offering Himself for us on the cross, became the final sacrifice, causing "the sacrifice and the oblation to cease" forever (Dan. 9).

The FIRST coming of the Lord was also called "the Day of the Lord", a day of salvation, but also a day of great wrath. Jesus Himself said that John the Baptist WAS the "Elijah" that should come before that Day. He also said that His life and ministry was the Day of Visitation of the Lord, and mourned the fact that the Jews did not recognize Him.

Seen in this way, His "coming in the clouds" (a metaphor for judgment in the OT) over Jerusalem in 70 A.D. was PART OF His first coming, delayed -- mercifully -- for 40 years in response to Jesus's prayer, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". In spite of the delay, though, Jesus' predictions came to pass: that His coming would be in the SHORT TERM, seen by the disciples (Mt. 10:23; 16:28), "this generation" (Mt. 24:34), including the high priest (Mt. 26:64) and "they which pierced Him" (Rev. 1:7).

The Antichrist could not have been Antiochus Epiphanes, because he was around over a hundred years before Christ. I tend to favor Nero. He claimed to be God, he was 6th in the line of Caesars (Rev. 17:10 - followed by Galba, who continued only 6 months - "a short space"); his name, Neron Caesar, had a Hebrew numeric value of 666 (interestingly, some early texts use the number 616 - the numeric value of Nero's name in Latin); he was known by historians of his own day as "the beast", his persecution of Christians lasted exactly 42 months (until his suicide -- the "deadly wound" from which the generic beast, Rome, recovered, going on, in the persons of Vespasian and Titus, to destroy Jerusalem.

Even though there is a lot of evidence to show that Daniel 9, Revelation, and Mt. 24 (and parallel passages in Mark and Luke) are largely fulfilled, I do understand that "antichrist" is a spirit, and that these types of scenarios of persecution of the Church by egomaniacs are bound to repeat themselves. In fact, it can be argued that the entire New Testament period is one of "great tribulation". Even in the 20th century, it is estimated that more Christians died for their faith than in all the previous centuries combined. In some sense, "the antichrist" and tribulation are part of an ongoing pattern that will continue until Jesus' second coming (1 Co. 15, 1 Th. 4,5), which will bring history to a close and establish the eternal order of things.

As for "the millennium", there is only one reference in the entire Bible of a thousand year period, and that reference is surrounded by all kinds of obviously symbolic language. Generally, in Bible interpretation, it is not considered wise to take a hard stand on something that is as unclear and contested as that verse is. Through most of Christian history, the thousand year reign of Christ has been interpreted to refer to the present age of the Church; that is, the time between the first resurrection, when the power of Satan is limited because of the spiritual resurrection experienced by believers, and the END, when their bodies will also be resurrected.

I see the description of the "heavenly city" - Rev. 21, 22, not as a physical description of OUR dwelling place, but as a spiritual description of GOD'S dwelling place - us. We are the New Jerusalem, the center of the New Earth (the New Creation under a New Covenant). Jesus would be in the midst of us as both the Tree of Life, and the River of Life; what is in US is what is needed for the healing of the nations.