I grew up a Catholic, became completely disinterested after leaving school, but met Jesus in my early 20s. Joined the Assemblies of God and discovered prophecy. Hal Lindsay's book, as mentioned elsewhere on this thread, became a second Bible almost. I think I read it more than a dozen times, and referred to it constantly when sharing my faith. But after a few years, and noticing that preachers in Pentecostal churches all over were preaching the same message, but with many inconsistencies, I began to ask questions, especially after 1988, when the 40 year generation since 1948 (Israel's commencement) was complete. The ultimate question was, where was the proof? While the prophecies used in the book and sermons were in scripture, they seemed to me to be plucked out of context, and had little or no connections to other prophecies purportedly belonging in the same time frame and same end time context. There seemed to be too much disconnect. No pattern. No scriptural links from one prophecy to another, no uniformity. Yet prophecy still fascinated me, and I wanted to know more. I left those churches, but never entirely from my faith. But due to my own inconsistency and compromising, my faith eventually suffered, and my family also as a result.
Time came to return to Jesus. This was 1997. I poured out my heart and soul on behalf of my family and my marriage which was on the edge of a deep cliff. We need help. I asked the Lord to start again. To help me discard everything I had thought I knew, and start fresh. Urgently. A scripture came to mind, "seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things (for which you just prayed) will be added unto you". It was after that, just a few weeks later, that I discovered a system of prophetic understanding that made sense. It was logical. It harmonized. Everything linked together. Everything was kept in context. And most of all, it was deep, it was unafraid of criticism, and it withstood all manner of critique and challenges. It answered all my questions.
It was at that time I found out that there were three major methods of understanding prophecy... They were called hermeneutics... Preterism, futurism, and historicism. It was historicism that the reformers used to identify the Papacy as the Antichrist. It was historicism that the early church used to be able to warn others of the coming of Antichrist, and identify from where it was coming. It is historicism that today gives me so much confidence and faith in Jesus and the Father that regardless of the crisis that is coming upon the world very soon, culminating in the second coming, I know where I and my family now stand in the stream of time...I know who the major protagonists are in the controversy between good and evil, Christ and Satan, and who the major players are in the world today in the context of end times. And I know that if I live long enough, God will protect me and all who put their faith and trust in him, from falling, despite being witnesses to the mayhem. (No secret rapture).
My conclusion...
The Late Great Planet Earth, and the resultant movies and books to this day, got it all wrong.