Satan - An Usurper

The following is from Charles H. Usher's book Satan--a Defeated Foe:

"Since Calvary, Satan has been an usurper. He has no rights whatever. Do we fully realize what this means?

"If he has no rights, then whatever position he holds, he maintains it as an usurper--an outlaw. And because he is an usurper, he can be resisted wherever his power is felt and manifest.

"He has no right to any life, to any place, to any organization.  Not only so, but it is our duty to oppose him. For to leave him unchallenged is to rob Jesus of that for which he died on the Cross.

"To withhold the proclamation of the devil’s defeat is also to rob men of the opportunity of throwing off an allegiance to Satan which they may be longing to get rid of.

"The fact that this truth is not seen clearly is accountable for much of the deadness and lack of true aggressive labor for the winning of souls.

"It is also the cause of much of the passivity amongst many spiritually minded believers regarding the evils that exist in the world.

"If Calvary stands for Satan’s overthrow, why are we not practically applying it to those evils? If Satan has been stripped of his power at the Cross, why is it that he is allowed to make such strides in the false teachings and the counterfeits that are flourishing today?

"Satan fears this aspect of the Cross more than any other. He knows that once the saints enter into and thoroughly understand the extent to which the Cross has robbed him of his power, from that hour his downfall will be certain and rapid. Hence he has done everything possible to hide the real significance of Calvary by counterfeiting it, by ridiculing it, by every means within his grasp in order to hinder the Church entering into its true spiritual meaning.

"If he cannot keep the truth from the believer, he will cause him to hold it in the mind instead of entering experimentally into it in the full power of the Spirit.

"Doctrine about the Cross he fears not; but its reality he fears.

". . . Christ came down into Satan’s sphere, which is this world system, and overcame him there so that he though this system might have no further hold upon us.

"Have we claimed this aspect of the Cross yet?

". . . Sink deep into Christ’s grave if you would keep free from Satan’s entanglements. Satan is a defeated foe, but there is only one place where that fact can be a permanent reality in the believer’s life, and that place is Christ’s death. 'Buried with Him'--the devil cannot follow you there. He loses you forever. The Cross cuts you off from all the material he needs to work upon in order to possess you or yours."