John R. Rice said the following in a sermon on hell entitled “Hell-What the Bible Says about It,” I have intentionally been trying to call your attention to Hell. I fear we do not preach enough on hell and it may cause us to forget the heavy responsibility we all carry.

Jesus said that the rich man was buried and lifted up his eyes in Hell. Though his body at that time was in the grave, it would not prevent his having all the senses or asking for a drop of water to cool his tongue.

But the time is coming when that rich man will have his physical body in Hell. In Revelation 20:11–15 God gives a picture when the unsaved dead will come out of Hell, get their resurrection bodies from the graves on earth or from the waters of the sea, will stand before God for condemnation, then be cast forever into the lake of fire.

“And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”

The Hell where men are now is a Hell of lost souls where people are conscious and suffer while their bodies remain in the graves on earth. But at this future judgment of all the unsaved, we read that “the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.”

The bodies come from death to life so that men stand before God. Hell gives up the spirit dead while the earth gives up the physical dead, and the bodies and souls of lost men come together again. This is the time of which God speaks:

“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”—Phil. 2:10, 11.

Literal knees will bow and literal tongues will be compelled to confess their sins before Christ and the assembled multitude; then these, in literal bodies, will be cast into the lake of fire.

 John R. Rice, “Hell-What the Bible Says about It,” in Great Preaching On: Hell, Great Preaching Series (Sword of the Lord Publishers, 1989), 19–20.