"Victory over the Darkness," and "The Bondage Breaker"

"Victory over the Darkness," and "The Bondage Breaker"
Wednesday, February 26, 2025 by Dr. James W. Walraven

Categories: Contemporary issues / Spiritual deception / Spiritual warfare

Today, as part of Faith & Reason Ministries, we finish our mid-week study of two of Neil Anderson’s books, “Victory over the Darkness,” and “The Bondage Breaker.” The study has been going on for about a year, meeting on average about twice a month. The two books conclude with a lengthy individual prayer time, “Steps to Freedom,” that can take several hours to do, when done thoroughly.

Both books are highly recommended. “Victory over the Darkness” is excellent for helping one to understand who they truly are in Christ, while “The Bondage Breaker” focuses more on spiritual warfare, and the spiritual bondages one might be in due to past sin choices.

I strongly recommend going through the “Steps to Freedom” upon completing the study. Most of us typically don’t spend hours in prayer at a time: biblically one can make the case that we’d be better off if we did. That prayer time can be very intense as it provides a blueprint for taking a full inventory of one’s life, and all the areas of one’s life, past to the present, where one might have undealt with sin and spiritual strongholds.

Why do these books matter? As our secular culture increasingly embraces religions such as Wicca, Druidism, and New Age, to those who embrace demonic lying signs and wonders such as one finds in The New Apostolic Reformation, to ever-increasing flagrant sexual sin, drug use, or involvement in the occult in general, demonic oppression and outright possession will continue to rise. All of those activities open up a person to severe demonic influence, oppression, and outright deception.

The refusal to forgive—something that is becoming a hallmark for many—also opens one up to serious spiritual oppression. One also thinks of much of popular music and many movies where actors and performers directly glorify Satan and spiritual darkness. Watching or listening to those types of movies and music isn’t helpful. For the performers, the trade-off is ages old: power, fame, money, or sex in the here and now for one’s future destiny.

What isn’t realized is that that destiny is eternal Hell. Even if it is acknowledged, the lie is believed that Hell will be an endless party. There’s lots of variations of the old line: “It is better to party in Hell with friends than to serve in Heaven.” The biblical reality is that one will be separated from God for all eternity, and that Hell will be a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. In other words, it will be a place of ceaseless wailing combined with uncontrolled rage; a place of darkness and misery that we can’t begin to fathom: a place God pleads with us not to go. The only way to avoid it is through placing faith in Jesus Christ, and His death on the cross for our sins.

The point is, the more our culture embraces evil, the more demonic activity we’ll see, and the more that activity will be out in the open. Christians need biblically-based tools and training to help people become free of it (only possible through Christ), and both books provide it. Both books are biblically well-balanced.

Satan doesn’t care what we believe about him as long as it isn’t biblical. He’s fine with us either making too much of him by looking for demons under every rock and behind every corner, fearing his power or by thinking that he doesn’t exist. We need to remember what is biblically true, that Jesus Christ has already defeated him, and that as Christians, we have Christ’s power available to us vbia the Holy Spirit. One sees that illustrated over and over again in the New Testament.

It is time for us as Christians to take a solid biblical stand regarding spiritual warfare, pray that God would open people’s eyes, that they’d become free in Christ, and then help them grow in Christ. Both books help immensely with that discipling process. Highly recommended.

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Comments

Stephanie From West Virginia At 3/24/2026 11:01:09 AM

Does anyone know if there is a trained counselor to complete the steps with?

Reply by: James W. Walraven

I think your best option would be to reach out directly to Freedom in Christ Ministries, as well as their official website, for resources and trained ministry leaders in your geographic area. They are biblically very solid, and sadly, one has to be careful not to fall prey to fringe "deliverance" type groups, hence contacting them directly.