The Absurdity of a Gift Refused

What a deplorable situation! If the Gospel were to come as a terrible tyrant or Turk and only frighten and plague people, take their goods and kill them, then it would not be surprising if people were hostile to it. But as matters stand, no one may accuse the Gospel of doing this. It harms no one; it allows you and everybody to keep what you have: wife, husband, child, house, home, property, land, people. It looks for the crown of neither the emperor nor king....

On the contrary, the Gospel says to all people: Keep what you have; I want and desire none of those things. Only do this: Believe on the Son of God in order to be eternally blessed when this life is at an end.... I want to help you. Only accept me gratefully. I desire nothing beyond your simple faith and your recognition of this opportunity. 

Tel me, what more can God be expected to do than to offer to all the world what He does offer?... All His offer earns for Him is hostility against him who proclaims this Gospel, which is unparalleled on earth....

The attitude of the person who will not accept Him or be thankful to Him who gave him his temporal possessions and his life, and then bestows eternal life on top of all this, is not something natural or human; for it is contrary to reason and all human sense. This reaction is rather the work of the wretched devil from hell; the devil has taken possession of both the body and the soul of men. 

Source: Quoted in Ewald M. Plass, What Luther Says, A Practical In-home Theology for the Active Christian.  St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.  1959 Edition, 10th Printing (1994), p. 566-567.