Stacy, if I may just suggest simply that Revelation is just simply what John claims in the very beginning of the book, that is, a letter written to seven churches written at a specific time for a specific purpose. This properly contextualizes the book and makes it harder for the Left Behind folks to put it in a framework that makes all the dispensationalist application difficult to grasp.

The cosmic language did have an immediate context to the audience since there is enough evidence to suggest that it was written shortly before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70.

The final implications of the book and the consequences of the fall of the temple are cosmic and crucial to the Christian faith, soteriology, understanding of the Kingdom, politics, environmentalism, etc.