We have often heard statements such as “War is hell” or “I went through hell.” These expressions are, of course, not taken literally. Rather, they reflect our tendency to use the word hell as a descriptive term for the most ghastly human experience possible. Yet no human experience in this world is actually comparable to hell. If we try to imagine the worst of all possible suffering in the here and now we have not yet stretched our imaginations to reach the dreadful reality of hell.

What will it be like in the days preceding the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ?

Perhaps the greatest testimony of the importance of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is found in the letter of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthian church:

". . .as  it is written: ^ “None is righteous, no, not one. . .

Death is separation. A physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. Spiritual death, which is of greater significance, is the separation of the soul from God. In Genesis 2:17, God tells Adam that in the day he eats of the forbidden fruit he will “surely die.” Adam does fall, but his physical death does not occur immediately; God must have had another type of death in mind—spiritual death. This separation from God is exactly what we see in Genesis 3:8. When Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord, they “hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God.” The fellowship had been broken. They were spiritually dead.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins. - Ephesians 2:1

In those words, the Apostle Paul is speaking of a 'former' state of those believers, a state of being spiritually dead.  So we have to ask - former to what? Well, that is rather self-evident in the context and can only mean before they believed in Christ, since he is speaking to professing believes in Ephesus.