Hi Gordon,
We all long for the same material stuff, nothing spiritual, we cannot know spirit in this carnal life, he said it & it will be.
Hebrews 9:27-Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,
Plainly, no one would live to see his second coming becuase the above verse will not be spirit & truth if any is alive to witness this.
There are a few that are being judged at this time.
1Peter 4:17 For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?
Yes there are a few that are dying to the carnal flesh now, as Paul said "I die daily."
1Cor 15:31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
With these few it is with Christ indwelling and this is our baptism of the Holy Spirit and likened to being buried (in the symbolic water) and then raised to be a new man/woman and judged daily.
Rom 6:3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
v. 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
v. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
v. 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
So yes we are now dying to the flesh everyday as we are being taken through the process of dying to self and overcoming sin. It is a slow process of first coming to really hate the sins and slowly being given power to overcome, in time, but not by our power, but the power of the Holy Spirit.
1John 3:24 And he that keepeth His commandments dwelleth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.
1John 4:4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
So if the Holy Spirit is indwelling then we are judged, and we can overcome, and we do know the truth, which can only come from divine revelation of God in our minds.
1Cor 2:9 But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."
v. 10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
v. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
v. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
v. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
v. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
v. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.
v. 16 For "who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
mercy, peace and love
Kat