Satan is neither bound, restrained, nor banished at present.
HE’S GONE.
Gone as in destroyed, slain by God, and reduced to a pile of ashes, as was prophesied for the cherub who was in Eden, but who fell into rebellion against God. Ezekiel 28:17-19 predicted the method of destruction God would use to get rid of the cherub who had rebelled and turned into Satan. “...I will cast thee to the ground” (as the Devil and his angels were cast out of heaven to the earth in Rev. 12:9), “I will lay thee before kings,“ (these “kings” being the high priests of Israel - the “kings of the earth” in Matt. 17:25), “that they may behold thee...therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, and I WILL BRING THEE TO ASHES UPON THE EARTH in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people” (the people of Israel) “shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and NEVER SHALT THOU BE ANYMORE.”
This was to be a total annihilation of Satan scheduled, with his celestial flesh form (as Paul described it in I Cor. 15:40) reduced to ashes by the fire of God, so that he would exist no more. And it would be done on the earth, in front of the high priests / kings of the earth and the people of Israel who would witness this with terror and astonishment.
Isaiah also foretold when God would slay Satan in Isaiah 27:1. In the SAME DAY that God would bring down the lofty city of Jerusalem and lay it low, even to the dust (Is. 26:5); in the same day that the dead who belonged to God would rise from the dust of the grave (Is:26:19), then “IN THAT DAY the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and HE SHALL *SLAY* THE DRAGON that is in the sea.” (The Dragon being the same as ”that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan” - Rev. 12:9.)
Just before his final destruction, the Devil and his angels were given a “short time” and a “little season” after the millennium ended in AD 33 to deceive the nations on a huge scale. We are told exactly when this “short time” had begun, and it was back in the first century.
Rev. 12:12 was written to a generation that currently had a wrathful Satan released into the world for just a “short time” in THEIR DAYS. As John warned his readers, “...Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea!” (meaning those in Israel as well as in Gentile lands), “for the Devil IS COME DOWN UNTO YOU” (a PRESENT REALITY for John’s readers in those days) “having great wrath, because he knoweth he hath but a SHORT TIME.”
This “short time” of Satan’s great wrath immediately followed the time when the Devil was cast out of heaven with his angels, which happened at Christ’s arrival in heaven on the morning after His resurrection in AD 33. The shed blood of the Lamb brought into heaven that morning that was offered to God on heaven’s mercy seat had forever annulled any accusation that the Devil could bring before God against the brethren. He was “thrown out of court” down to the earth at that point, and never allowed back in after that.
But having lost any access to heaven, an enraged Satan and his angels went into high gear on the earth instead. Just like the “roaring lion” that Paul mentioned, the Devil went out to deceive as many as possible in that “short time” and “little season” that he had remaining before his final destruction in Jerusalem’s Lake of Fire. That’s why the “armor of God” was such a vital necessity for the saints in those first-century days.
Just how long was a “LITTLE season” for Satan to operate? It’s shorter than a “LONG season”, which scripture defines as lasting 40 years in the wilderness (Joshua 24:7 cp Deut. 8:2). Therefore, Satan was loosed to deceive the nations for a “little season” and a ”short time” of less than 40 years after he was cast down to the earth following Christ’s AD 33 resurrection and ascension.
This means an AD 70 destruction of Satan and his angels took place in the Lake of Fire which was the equivalent of Jerusalem’s “SECOND death”; strikingly similar to the city’s first death that took place under the Babylonians in 586 BC.
Long ago in Isaiah 31:9, the prophet said that the Lord’s “FIRE is in Zion, and his FURNACE IS IN *JERUSALEM*” This is the same “furnace of fire” mentioned in Matthew 13:40-42 that would burn up the “tares” at the “completion of the age”. That means JERUSALEM was to be the location where God would dispose of all the wicked dead as well as the Devil and his angels at the same time.
The blame for any evil that currently exists is laid squarely at the feet of mankind ALONE ever since AD 70. Those who don’t think mankind is capable of this level of wickedness without Satan or his angels around to instigate it have no concept of the level of wickedness that can emerge from within the hearts of men.
As Christ explained it in Mark 7:20-23, “And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For FROM WITHIN, OUT OF THE HEART OF MEN proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: ALL THESE THINGS COME FROM WITHIN, and defile the man.” No demonic influence required.