The Offer of Eternal Happiness

Why do unbelievers reject God’s gracious offer of eternal life?  The gospel promises happiness that is everlasting and completely satisfying to everyone.  Why do people then reject the gospel?  Surely everyone wants to be happy.  And they do not want their happiness to end.  So how can people say “No!” to something so good?  Writer Sinclair Lewis, an alcoholic and skeptic, had a character in one novel say about the gospel, “I would love to believe it, but I don’t.”  There must be something about God’s offer that makes people refuse it.  In Philippians 3:8-11, the apostle Paul wrote that the value of possessing salvation in Jesus Christ surpasses the value of everything else to such a degree that he is willing to lose everything to obtain it.  Paul was willing give up anything and use “any means possible to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:11).  If the pathway to eternal happiness is one of self-denial and suffering, nothing will deter him.  But there is the great obstacle.  People want lasting happiness, but not by the means God has ordained.  God’s demand that saving faith must include repentance, i. e., turning away from sin, is what they will not accept.  In order to rule their own lives for a few score years in this life, without God’s interference, unbelievers pay a very high price.