Baseball Hall of Fame catcher, Lawrence "Yogi" Berra, once remarked, "The future ain't what it used to be." Yogi might have been describing Isaiah's message in our text today.

On the one hand, things looked pretty bleak for God's people. A few years before that was written, the mighty Assyrian army under Tiglath-pileser III, had ravaged the land and absorbed the regions of Zebulun and Naphtali into one Assyrian Province (1 Kings 15:29).

After the Assyrians took over, many people had begun to worship pagan deities. Often, they were tempted to "consult the hosts and the familiar spirits that chirp and mutter" instead of the Lord (Isaiah 8:19).

"Surely," said the Lord, "those who speak like this will have no dawn ... but will see only distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish; and they w…