Acts 14:16
Acts 14:1616In past generations, He let all nations go their own way.
is not a heavily featured verse in JW literature. The Watchtower's Armageddon doctrine teaches that the Gentile nations outside the organisation remain in spiritual darkness until they are destroyed at Jehovah's final war, and — where Paul says God "permitted all the nations to go on in their ways" — is read as a background observation rather than a pivot.
names a real "before and after." Before Christ, God "permitted all the nations to go on in their ways" — the Gentile world was under Satan's dominion (pair with , "God has overlooked the times of such ignorance," and , "you were dead in your trespasses"). After the resurrection and Pentecost, that permission ended. Jesus had declared himself to be binding the strong man (), and the gospel exploded out of Jerusalem to the ends of the earth precisely because Satan could no longer keep the nations captive. defines what the binding accomplishes: "that he might not mislead the nations anymore." The Watchtower treats this binding as entirely future; the New Testament treats it as already inaugurated at Christ's first coming. is the hinge — the description of the old order that has now given way.