Why did he linger? He had property in Sodom, friends, other children may be, unfulfilled ambitions, maybe much pride, ‘I can’t admit I am wrong. ‘Why do we linger when we hear the gospel? Our proud ideas, ambitions. The angels say, ‘Don’t look back, don’t hesitate; just run. That is how the gospel comes to us. Suppose there was an air crash and you could smell smoke and alarm goes off. Get out! It is doesn’t matter that you have left your luggage. The same at sea. When there is an alarm, your life is all that matters. That is how God comes to us. There has to be an alarm because life is at stake. This is an emergency. You don’t have time to turn around. We are not talking about little things: this is about whether you are cut off from God for ever, or whether you are with him forever.
We hear the message and we linger, we hesitate. God has begun to wake us up and we have felt a stab of alarm at our predicament. ‘Life is serious and there are eternal consequences to the way I have lived. This is a disturbing message, but if I just go back to sleep spiritually and carry on as I have up till now, those eternal consequences will catch up with me. This warning is real and I must rouse myself to act on it.’ God could well leave us, and that thought should cause further alarm bells to ring in our souls. But no, the angel uses a little force. The Spirit increases the level of concern within us. The awakened sinner needs to go on keeping himself awake and taking this seriously. God puts us in a position where we sense the opposing forces pulling at us. We sense that sin has a fatal attraction to our old nature, and yet we have caught sight of the possibility of life in Christ. What will be the outcome of this tug of war within us? We desperately need to influence the outcome in the direction of God, and God is not going to do this all for us as if we are not involved. We sense the need to act urgently for our own spiritual good and seek Christ with all our hearts. Another realisation that should trouble us and will be used to spur us on is the realisation that our current state of alarm and concern for our souls is something that has been given to us. We did not wake ourselves up to see our danger but it was the gift of God. We dare not fail to take advantage of it since we have so little control over it.
The evangelist has to sound an alarm to wake people up. All alarms are made to frighten. We can be so cool about our situation, so unrealistic; it is necessary as well as kind of God to frighten us. Do you say, ‘I don’t need the gospel; I am very righteous’? You need an alarm from God. If the preacher does not sound an alarm, people may think it is up to them to think of a way to find a remedy. No, there is only one course of action. You have got to go to only one place: the cross of Christ. That is the only hope of a new life. An alarm means you have got to do it now. Maybe someone does kind of believe in God but keep putting it off. If you don’t seek now maybe your feet will be gone. You won’t want to escape. If you put off God, you may never want to see him again. Christian conversion isn’t just saying you are a Christian but coming to Christ forever.