That is an excellent question! To answer this, we must discern WHO the Lord was speaking to in each passage, WHAT place was being prepared for them, and WHEN will the people enter the place the Lord prepared for them.

1) WHO was the Lord speaking to? In Matthew 25:31-33 we read, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. ALL THE NATIONS will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides His sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.” We see here that the Lord gathered “all the nations,” which means “all the Gentile (non-Jewish nations) nations are gathered before Him. Then He separates them into “sheep” and “goats” (believers and unbelievers) and TELLS THE GENTILE BELIEVERS in verse 24 to “possess the kingdom which has been prepared for you.”

In John 14:1 the Lord says, “Let not YOUR heart be troubled; YOU believe in God, believe also in Me.” We need to read John chapter 13 to learn that He was SPEAKING TO ELEVEN OF HIS TWELVE DISCIPLES (Judas Iscariot had left the room before He spoke the words in John 14 (see 13:2, 18-26). Judas was not a true believer but the eleven had believed on Him as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (see Matthew 16:13-16 with John 6:66-71). After the Lord died, rose again, and ascended to heaven those eleven men, along with every other believer in Christ, would be baptized by the Holy Spirit and formed into the “Church of the God, the Body of Christ” (Acts 1:4; 2:1-4, 47b; 1st Corinthians 12:13; Ephesians 1:22).

2) WHAT place was being prepared for them? In Matthew 25:34 we saw “the KINGDOM which has been prepared for you.” The KINGDOM is the literal kingdom that was promised to Israel when God told King David, “When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish HIS KINGDOM. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish THE THRONE OF HIS KINGDOM FOREVER” (2nd Samuel 7:12-13). We know this is speaking of Jesus Christ, for we read in Matthew 25:31, “When the Son of Man comes in His glory…then He will sit on THE THRONE OF HIS GLORY.”

Now let’s read John 14:2-3, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place of you…I will come again and receive you to Myself; that WHERE I AM, that you may be also.” Jesus was NOT referring to a “KINGDOM here on earth”: He was speaking of taking believers to THE FATHER’S HOUSE IN HEAVEN. He would “PREPARE a place for them in heaven by dying on the cross so they could be fit to enter heaven” (see 1st Peter 1:3-4). The church’s destiny is HEAVEN, in contrast to ISRAEL and the NATIONS who will enter Christ’s KINGDOM ON EARTH.

3) WHEN will the people enter the place the Lord prepared for them? Let’s start with “the CHURCH,” for they will enter their place in heaven when Christ returns to the AIR to summon them to heaven. We see this in 1st Thessalonians 4:16-17, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to MEET THE LORD IN THE AIR. And thus, we shall always be with the Lord.” This is the next prophecy to be fulfilled and nothing needs to happen before the church is raptured (caught up) to the air where we will then be taken to the Father’s house in heaven, as we saw in John 14:2-3. The Lord could come at any moment FOR HIS SAINTS who have believed on Him during the present Church Age.

After the Rapture of the church, there will be a seven-year Tribulation Period on earth (Revelation chapters 6-18) and then the Lord will come WITH HIS SAINTS to subdue His enemies and to establish His Kingdom over the earth for 1,000 years (please read Revelation 19:11-20:6). Just prior to “sitting on His throne” He will gather all the Gentiles before Him to separate believers from unbelievers (as we saw in Matthew 25:32-33). Gentile believers will enter the earthly kingdom (verse 34), as will believing Israelites (Romans 11:26-27 with Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:16-36). So, the church enters her place (the Father’s house in heaven) first at the time of the Rapture, then believing Gentiles and Israelites enter their place (the Kingdom on earth) about seven years later.  (DO)  (583.5)