Eating My Words

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. (Isaiah 58:1)

Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them. 20 And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 15:19-20)

The context of the passage in Jeremiah which gives an example of the message to be given to God's sinful people is that the prophet is suffering for having eaten God's words, believed them, preached them and it now seems that he prophesied falsely, it seems like God lied to him. This may not be too unusual for prophets, this passage seems to be reflected in a passage in Revelation.

And I went unto the angel, and said unto him, Give me the little book. And he said unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey.
10 And I took the little book out of the angel's hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. 11 And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings. (Revelation 10:9-11)

This reminds me of the early Millerite movement who are probably the only example of time-setters that I sympathise with. They logically argued from the Bible that Jesus would return in 1844, which is the date that Daniel 8:14 arrives at. Of course they were very embarrassed when Jesus did not return, but that movement sparked great revivals and I believe it was from God. Remember that Jesus first disciples did not understand his mission until after their hopes of an earthly Messiah had been dashed. They got the time right (Mark 1:15) but the event wrong (Luke 24:24). True followers will not always get everything right, but they will follow Jesus wherever he goes.
And that leads me to the point of all this. There is no more set time left in prophecy; but if I had been there in the 19th Century would I have been willing to risk the embarrassment of being wrong? Would I have trusted what I saw in the Bible above my fear of unpopularity?

For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels. (Luke 9:26)

People have had many reasons to be ashamed or embarrassed about Jesus over the years, what reasons do I have? I am in trouble if I am not be willing to be disgraced for Jesus' sake, even if I have many good reasons for it. Probably I don't have many good reasons, yet I am still a bit ashamed of him. That is totally unacceptable; I choose not to be ashamed of Jesus, I don't really know what it will entail, but I know I will need power from heaven to stick by it. Please give me that power in Jesus' name.