The apostle John begins the Revelation with these words: "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto Him, to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John" (Rev. 1:1). The word "signified" is the Greek word semaino which is a derivative of the word semo meaning a mark or sign, or to indicate by signs or symbols. The English word could be written SIGN-I-FIED — demonstrating that it means to communicate by means of signs and symbols. We understand, of course, that is exactly how the Revelation was communicated to John and the whole book is a book of pictures and symbols!

Early in the book we meet a lamb. Even the literalists have enough sense to understand that the lamb is not a four-legged woolly little creature romping through the pasture squealing, "Baa...baa...baa...!" It is, in fact, Mary’s Little Lamb, but not the one in the nursery rhyme! We could preach on the "lamb" of God in any church in America and everyone would agree that this lamb is not a barnyard animal. But what amazes me is that they use an altogether different rule of interpretation on almost everything else in the book of Revelation! They spiritualize what they like and literalize what they don’t understand. Preachers have been preaching from the book of Revelation for centuries, identifying the lamb as a symbol for the man Christ Jesus who came to die for our sins, then proceed to assert that the throne of God is a seat somewhere out beyond the Milky Way that actually has a rainbow around it; the mark of the beast is an actual imprint on people’s foreheads; the blood flowing up to the horse’s bridles is literally going to happen over in the valley of Megiddo; and the New Jerusalem is a huge monstrosity that will one day come floating down out of the sky and land on the earth like a bump on a little boy’s head!

Jesus, in the days of His flesh, spoke often in the language of symbols. All of His wonderful parables were given in symbolic and allegorical language. But He also used symbols in His speech on many other occasions. The disciples were showing Jesus the temple and its grandeur. The gifts of the ages were reposited there, and the whole temple was built with the greatest cost and magnificence, so that nothing was more stupendous in all the nations. It was adorned with gold and silver and the whitest of marble, some of the foundation stones were more than sixty feet long, seven and a half feet high and nine feet broad. Jesus stood taking it all in, and gazing at the temple, said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again!" This totally "blew" the carnal minds of those standing there who heard these words! They were incensed and were ready to kill Him. With countenances distorted by anger the Jews replied, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?"

The seemingly strange language of the Bible is, in reality, picture language. Such expressions as, "the earth melted" at God’s voice, the earth reeling "to and fro as a drunkard," or the idea of those cast into "outer darkness" as "weeping and gnashing" their teeth are misleading to the carnal mind. The Bible is literally filled with symbolic language! Symbols or pictures are intended to clarify what the Lord wants to convey to us — but only to the one who hears by the Spirit! All others are confused. Some want to interpret the scriptures literally, and say that the spiritual interpretation is to change or "spiritualize away" the plain word of God. How can you spiritualize away that which is spiritual! Jesus said, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." Little wonder that years later on the isle of Patmos, among the visions He showed to John, He should say again and again, "He that hath an ear, let Him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches!"

Much more in the link:

https://www.godfire.net/eby/rev-7.html