Gathering The Elect

What exactly is going on with the gathering of the elect in Matthew 24:31 and Mark 13:27, since the Church has already been raptured by that point?

Q.What exactly is going on with the gathering of the elect in Matthew 24:31 and Mark 13:27, since the Church has already been raptured by that point? Also, does “the elect” strictly refer to the believing remnant of Israel? Even so, what is still the point of this said gathering, which seems to imply only believers so as to exclude this from being part of the “sheep and goats” gathering/judgement? I’m having trouble fitting this in with the return of Jesus in Revelation 19, the sheep and goats judgement of Matthew 25 and the start of the Millennium in Revelation 20.

Thanks for your remarkable insight.

A. In Matt 24:31 notice that the elect are being gathered from one end of the Heavens to the other. This is the Church being summoned to come back with the Lord, having previously been raptured. The Mark passage mentions us as well, but tells us that there’ll be believers on Earth too. They’re tribulation Saints who have survived and are being called to the sheep and goat judgment. They’re the sheep who will enter the kingdom in their natural bodies to re-populate Planet Earth.