What this means is, no one today really knows what it is like to live in a world with an unbound Satan.
And, it should be pointed out, we fallen humans are quite capable of generating evil, all on our own. There seems to be a curious idea out, that with Satan bound ("so as not to deceive the nations"), everything will be unicorns and rainbows.
Personally, I have a wild imagination, and thus I entertain the idea that the competitors of Elijah actually could summon fire from the heavens and that the Egyptian magicians actually could turn the Nile into blood. Even you must admit that the Last Days, such as you define them, will be characterized by fearful sights and great signs from heaven (Lk 21:11)
The last book through my hands was a re-read of Athanaseus' On the Incarnation. (An African, BTW. As such, not much given to "Jew-hating, Aryan superioty adventures." Ditto Aurelius Augustine. "Just sayin'.") One of his apologetic points, responding to Gentiles, was that in every nation where Christ went, the old gods, the old magic, the old oracles, all ceased.
I think it should be clear here that charlatans of all sorts will come out and try to divide up the church and render her powerless.
Yup. "who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. " Paul's common usage of "temple" points to this being something that happens in the church.
Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,
And, it should be pointed out, we fallen humans are quite capable of generating evil, all on our own. There seems to be a curious idea out, that with Satan bound ("so as not to deceive the nations"), everything will be unicorns and rainbows.
Recently Joel Osteen did one of his motivational presentations where he encouraged people to be like Ahab - the most wicked and ill spoken of king of Israel, so I have no doubts to the creativity and innovation within the modern American Religion so spin anything, and Dispensationalism provides a conduit you can drive a truck through of opportunity to screw with the Word.
Many preachers in the American Religion have redescribed sin as "missing the mark" or "making a mistake". Calling sin a "mistake", something subject to misfortune or accident then removes guilt which diminishes the need for repentance and shoves off the inherent wickedness of man to some other entity. Enter the unbound Satan.
Suddenly, the American Religion can claim that children have no sin, or no knowledge of sin and thus are not guilty of sin and until they reach this invention called the Age of Accountabilty, they don't need a Savior. So how does one explain the wickedness of a little child, who by God's Grace is too small and weak to kill you for not feeding him on his schedule or daring to deny him of his bupper? Either claim by fiat that it is not sin, or point the blame at an unbound Satan.
The late Flip Wilson made popular a statement "The Devil Made Me Do It" which is a much greater accusation of culpability than mere temptation. It became more than just a comedy schtick, it became part of our culture and ended up being one of the passages of "Scripture" found in 2nd Opinions right after "God helps those who help themselves" and "Cleanliness is next to Godliness".
Then we have the top ten verses of Scripture which people quote, tattoo, silk screen or embroider - most of them are I know the plans I have for you, and all things work out for those who love God variety, one where the person quoting them seems to not acknowledge sin. God Chastens whom He loves isn't too popular among this crowd since it seems that they live a normal, "sinless" yet "mistake" prone life and bad things just seem to happen so say the magic words, perform the quid pro works and the Cosmic Butler Genie Jesus is expected to kiss the boo-boo and make all things better. This is the doctrine of an unbound Satan. If Satan can deceive people into not accepting and taking responsibility for their own sin, then they don't feel a need for forgiveness.
The late Adrian Rogers, outspoken enemy of the Reformation, recharacterized "No one seeks after God as a diminished or absent desire to pray to God, and then he proposed a remedy to "force yourself" to pray.
Following Roger's thinking, If the Devil is responsible for all of the wickedness in the world, then it would seem that the Devil is the one needing forgiveness - I only make mistakes, and why waste God's time on forgiving me for making a mistake. Then I only need to pray to God when I need things above and beyond what I can get for myself. Ergo, diminished prayer. If man took responsibility for his own sins and falling to resistible temptation then we would be on our knees a lot, not because we need to "force ourselves" to, but because of we are compelled to by our own desire to keep the commands of God.
A bound Satan then makes us responsible for our own sins, and the Dispensational model with an unbound Satan, as a side benefit, absolves us from evil and wickedness.