A carpenter is
a builder, a constructor. It is a most useful and honorable calling. Our
blessed Lord worked with His hands at this calling, and has thus honored all
true labor. His countrymen, who saw no beauty in Him that they should desire
Him, used it as a term of reproach:“Is not this the Carpenter, the son of
Mary…? And they were offended at Him” (Mark 6:3). But our blessed Lord was
not only a carpenter at Nazareth; He had built the world—the whole vast
universe was the work of His hands. Through His atoning sacrifice upon the
cross, He has laid the foundation—“the Christ, the Son of the living God”
(Matt. 16:16)—for His Church. This is a holy temple for the abode of God
through the Spirit, and destined to be that for all eternity in the city to
which the Church gives its name—“the Bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Rev. 21:9), “the
city that has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). Thus
in all His works, our God with His Son shows us the divine dignity of the labor
of the Carpenter.

In Zechariah,
the prophet is shown a number of visions and symbolic scenes to impress upon
him both the condition of the remnant who had returned to the Lord and the
remedy to meet that condition. In the vision of the four carpenters this is
brought out in a striking way. “I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold four
horns” (Zech. 1:18). These horns are the Gentile powers—from the four corners
of the earth—who have scattered the people of God, and are still threatening
them. “And the Lord showed me four carpenters” (1:20). These are the remedy,
those who are to overcome and drive away the threatening powers of evil.

Notice that it
says, “I … saw … four horns.” It requires little discernment to see
evil and threatening danger. It is easy to see—and to be occupied with—the four
horns. We can all criticize and dwell upon the dangers, the failures of the
saints. But the Lord is the one who shows us the remedy. “The Lord
showed me four carpenters.” What is the power by which the inroads, the
oppression of the enemy is to be met? How shall we combat those four terrible
horns?

Naturally we
would say, by other horns; we must meet force by force, we must smite with the
sword. But what do we see in the midst of the carnage of the enemy’s power?
Carpenters, builders-up of that which is good, strengthening the things that
remain. This is how the Spirit of God puts it before us in the Epistle of Jude.
Evil, false profession, pride, and iniquity were coming in like a flood; all
seemed to be in ruin:“But you, beloved, building up yourselves on
your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the
love of God” (Jude 20,21). They, and we, are called to carpenter work, to the
quiet, steady, persistent construction of that which cannot be moved.

The application
is simple, individually and collectively. We are not to be deterred from going
forward with constructive work. Do temptations, difficulties, or failures
confront us? Let us be found quietly going on with God’s Word, feeding upon it,
storing our minds with it, learning more and more of its blessed fullness. Let
us seek to feed and to shepherd the sheep, to seek to help the need among the
saints. How great the need of pastors, of builders, among the saints. May the
Lord stir us up to these things, that we may see His work prosper, even in most
difficult times.

(From Words
of Truth, Vol. 5.)