The Bonfire of the Vanities Text: Isaiah 47:12-15
Introduction: The World's Useless Saviors
We live in an age that is drowning in information and yet starved for wisdom. Our culture is besotted with experts, counselors, gurus, and forecasters. We have more data, more analysis, and more predictions at our fingertips than any generation in human history. We consult the political pundits, the economic forecasters, the self-help authors, and the wellness influencers. We look to the algorithm, the polls, and the stars. And yet, for all our accumulated knowledge, we are a deeply anxious, confused, and weary people. Why? Because we have been consulting the wrong saviors.
The passage before us in Isaiah 47 is a divine taunt song, a blistering piece of prophetic sarcasm directed at the proud city of Babylon. Babylon was the Silicon Valley, the Wall Street, and the Washington D.C. of its day, all rolled into one. It was the epicenter of worldly wisdom, military might, and occultic spirituality. They believed they had the system figured out. They trusted in their enchantments, their sorceries, their astrologers, and their many counselors. They were confident that their expertise could secure their future and deliver them from any calamity.
And God, through His prophet Isaiah, essentially tells them, "Go ahead. Double down. Trust in your system. Let's see how that works out for you." This is not just ancient history. This is a perpetual word to every generation and every individual who seeks salvation from any source other than the living God. Every man has a savior of some kind. The only question is whether your savior can actually save. The world offers us a multitude of saviors: political ideologies, technological advancements, educational attainment, financial security, or personal self-discovery. But God here exposes them all for what they are: stubble for the fire. They are not just inadequate; they are flammable. They are not just unhelpful; they will be consumed in the very judgment from which you expect them to deliver you.
This passage is a divine invitation to a bonfire. It is God calling us to throw all our worthless, man-made saviors onto the pyre of His judgment and to watch them go up in smoke. It is a call to radical, exclusive trust in the only one who can walk through the fire and bring us out safely on the other side.
The Text
"Stand fast now in your spells And in your many sorceries With which you have labored from your youth; Perhaps you will be able to profit; Perhaps you may cause trembling.
You are wearied with your many counsels; Let now the astrologers, Those who behold visions by the stars, Those who predict by the new moons, Stand up and save you from what will come upon you.
Behold, they have become like stubble, Fire burns them; They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame; There will be no coal to warm by Nor a fire to sit before!
Thus they have become for you, those among whom you have labored, Who have traded with you from your youth; Each has wandered in his own way; There is none to save you."
(Isaiah 47:12-15 LSB)
The Divine Dare (v. 12)
God begins with a sharp, sarcastic challenge to Babylon.
"Stand fast now in your spells and in your many sorceries with which you have labored from your youth; perhaps you will be able to profit; perhaps you may cause trembling." (Isaiah 47:12)
This is holy mockery. God says, "Go on, then. Cling to your magic. You've been at this since you were a young nation. All that labor, all that study, all that investment in the dark arts. Let's see the return on your investment." The word for "spells" has to do with enchantments and incantations. "Sorceries" points to the use of drugs, potions, and other occultic practices. This was not a hobby for them; it was their labor. They had toiled at it. It was their state-sponsored religion, their science, their defense program.
And what is the best God can say for it? "Perhaps." "Perhaps you will be able to profit." "Perhaps you may cause trembling." This is the language of utter futility. All their centuries of occultic labor might, just maybe, produce a result. This is the difference between paganism and true faith. Paganism is a system of manipulation. It is man trying to control the gods, the spirits, or the cosmos through rituals and secret knowledge. It is a labor, a work, a striving. And the result is always uncertain. "Perhaps."
Biblical faith is the opposite. It is not our labor but God's grace. It is not our striving but His finished work. The result is not "perhaps" but "amen." It is not "maybe" but "it is finished." The modern world is just as steeped in this sorcery, though it has different names. We labor at our careers, our fitness regimens, our political activism, our therapeutic techniques, all in an effort to control our destiny and ward off disaster. We are trying to cast a spell on the universe to make it give us what we want. And God says, "How's that working out for you? All that labor, all that anxiety. Perhaps it will work." But He knows it won't.
The Weariness of Worldly Wisdom (v. 13)
From occultic power, God turns to intellectual power, and finds it just as wanting.
"You are wearied with your many counsels; Let now the astrologers, those who behold visions by the stars, those who predict by the new moons, stand up and save you from what will come upon you." (Isaiah 47:13)
Babylon wasn't just mystical; it was intellectual. They were famous for their counselors, their wise men. But notice the result: "You are wearied." Worldly wisdom, divorced from God, is exhausting. Why? Because it never arrives at the truth. It is an endless series of committee meetings, think tanks, and strategy sessions that multiply complexity but never provide certainty. It is a hamster wheel of human opinion.
So God issues another challenge. "Let them stand up now." He calls out their specific experts: the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators. These were the ancient world's equivalent of our economists, pollsters, and data analysts. They observed the patterns, they crunched the numbers (the stars, in their case), and they made their predictions. And God says, "Alright, gentlemen. A crisis is coming. My judgment is at the door. Stand up and save the nation. Do what you are paid to do. Justify your existence."
This is a direct assault on the idolatry of expertise. We are taught to trust "the science," to listen to "the experts." But when those experts operate from a framework that excludes the God who created and sustains the world, their counsel is ultimately worthless. They can observe the created order, but they cannot know the mind of the Creator. They can see the signs in the sky, but they cannot see the hand that hung the stars. Their wisdom is two-dimensional in a three-dimensional world, and the missing dimension is God. And so, when the real crisis comes, when the judgment of God falls, their counsel will be useless.
The Inevitable Inferno (v. 14)
Here, God reveals the true nature and destiny of these worldly saviors.
"Behold, they have become like stubble, fire burns them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame; there will be no coal to warm by nor a fire to sit before!" (Isaiah 47:14)
The image is devastating. These wise men, these powerful sorcerers, are not mighty oaks; they are stubble. They are the dry, worthless stalks left over after the harvest, fit for nothing but burning. And the fire is coming. This is the fire of God's judgment. And notice the totality of their failure. First, "they cannot deliver themselves." How can they save you when they cannot even save themselves? If your savior is flammable, you have a problem.
But the second image is even more striking. This fire of judgment is not a cozy campfire. "There will be no coal to warm by nor a fire to sit before!" This is not a useful, manageable fire that provides comfort and light. This is a conflagration. It is a fire of pure consumption, pure wrath. You cannot harness it. You cannot sit around it and tell stories. It offers no warmth, only terror. This is the nature of God's judgment against sin and idolatry. It is not remedial; it is retributive. It is not a tool for improvement; it is an agent of destruction.
The Final Verdict: No Savior (v. 15)
The chapter concludes with a stark and lonely summary of Babylon's condition.
"Thus they have become for you, those among whom you have labored, who have traded with you from your youth; each has wandered in his own way; there is none to save you." (Isaiah 47:15)
All those you trusted, all those you labored with, all your trading partners and consultants from your youth, this is what they have become for you: nothing. Ash. Stubble consumed.
And then the final, chilling diagnosis: "Each has wandered in his own way; there is none to save you." This is the endpoint of all godless systems. Everyone is out for himself. When the fire comes, the counselors and sorcerers will not stand with you; they will scatter, each wandering in his own path of self-preservation. The social contract of paganism dissolves under pressure. It is a society of lone wanderers, and when the crisis hits, it is every man for himself.
The verse ends with the bleakest four words in Scripture: "There is none to save you." This is the definition of Hell. It is to be stripped of all your false saviors, to see them consumed in the fire, and to be left utterly alone, with no one to call upon, no one to deliver, no one to save. This is the end of the road for every person, every culture, every nation that rejects the Lordship of Jesus Christ. After all the noise of your politics, the brilliance of your technology, and the fervor of your activism, you are left with this deafening silence: no one to save you.
The Stubble and the Savior
As with all Old Testament judgments, this is a severe mercy. It is a warning shot across our bow. God shows us the end of the Babylonian way so that we might flee from it. This passage is designed to make us ask a fundamental question: Who is my savior? In whom, or in what, am I trusting to deliver me from what is to come?
The New Testament picks up this imagery of fire and stubble and applies it directly to the life of the Christian and the church. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3 that Jesus Christ is the only foundation. But upon that foundation, we can build with two kinds of materials: gold, silver, and precious stones, or wood, hay, and stubble. The Day of Judgment will reveal what kind of work we have done, "because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done" (1 Cor. 3:13).
Wood, hay, and stubble are the world's methods. They are the sorceries and counsels of Babylon brought into the church. It is building with worldly wisdom, with marketing techniques, with political maneuvering, with therapeutic platitudes. It is all the stuff that impresses men but is flammable to God. And on the last day, that fire will come, and all that work will be burned up. The man himself will be saved, "but only as through fire," smelling of smoke, with nothing to show for his life's work.
But there is one who is not stubble. There is one who walked through the very furnace of God's wrath on the cross and was not consumed. Jesus Christ is the one who took the full force of that unquenchable fire in our place. He is the one who can deliver not only Himself but all who take refuge in Him.
The final words of our text are "there is none to save you." But the gospel thunders back, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). The message of Isaiah is that all your earthly saviors will fail you and burn. They are stubble. The message of the gospel is that there is a heavenly Savior who will never fail you, for He has already passed through the fire. The choice before us, then, is simple. Will you stand with the astrologers and be consumed, or will you stand with Christ and be saved?