The excellencies of Job, the encounters of Satan with God, Job (unknowingly) placed by God to demonstrate the reality of conversion, his crushing afflictions, the shock of his friends, and his magnificent poem of dismay - and the blessings he lost sight of (like us).

Eliphaz begins the attack by the so-called friends. Resenting Job's evangelical salvation, and protecting their works theology, they insist he is a hypocrite under judgement. They deny that God requires holiness - only a pass mark. With pastoral lessons from Job's first reply.

Job's 'friends' increase in hostility with charges of hypocrisy. Job clings to his evangelical view of grace, and upholds God's perfection, but lapses into self-pity. He then eloquently trounces and disproves the liberal theology of the friends, and proclaims his testimony of salvation.

Job longs for an explanation of his suffering, and for vindication before his 'friends'. As his friends denigrate him, and his gloom deepens, he is suddenly given a moment of revelation about his personal Redeemer-God, incarnate, and visible to him in a final resurrection.

Job is denounced by his justified-by-works friends, but refutes their ideas. He criticises God for not having a complaints procedure for people like himself, yet at the same time, he witnesses to his friends in a magnificent poem on finding wisdom and truth.

Charged with extreme hypocrisy by his friends, Job describes the virtuous works of his public and private life. But despite his godliness he seems to over-relish his wealth and station, and shows no evangelical compassion for the outcasts of society.

Elihu is a true messenger of God, whose reproof of Job is confined to Job's post-affliction reactions. His noble speeches anticipate the very words of God, soon to follow, and he gives a full explanation of God's use of affliction in the lives of His people.

Here are elements of Job's humbling (vital for light, pardon and blessing) showing how the Lord works in the lives of all His people. Here also are pastoral lessons drawn from the wild goats, asses and oxen, and from the ostrich and the warhorse.

We take the beasts to be a hippopotamus and crocodile, both teaching trust, the power and invincibility of God (for if He made them they must reflect His infinitely greater capacities) and the contrasting weakness displayed by Job.