John MacArthur's Chronology of Revelation

Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 50
Gary discusses a short video clip by John MacArthur regarding the chronology of the book of Revelation. Once again, textual time indicators are ignored in favor of pushing all the events of the book into the near (always near) future. But how can we read a book that uses words like "soon," "shortly," "quickly" and claim that it wasn't near in time for Christians that came before us?