Can it be any plainer?
The picture the Bible uses to illustrate salvation is Lazarus after he had been dead for four days. Then Christ came to Him. Lazarus did not go to Jesus because Lazarus was dead. Christ came to where he was in the grave and Christ spoke to him. Jesus made decision concerning him. The Lord Jesus Christ chose Lazarus to bring to life. That is why Jesus said, in John 15:16:
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you…
That is the true Gospel, no matter what man may say. Men will “muddy the waters,” especially in our modern church world that is full of the emissaries of Satan. They cannot recognize the true Gospel of the Bible and, yet, it is very simple: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” He also said, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Or, as the Scriptures say in Romans 9:15-16:
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
Can it be any plainer? “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” and “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” It is not of him that willeth. To go along with that, let us look at John 1:12-13:
But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
It has nothing to do with your family or whether your father was a pastor. It is not “of the will of the flesh,” as we already read in Romans, chapter 9. It is not “of the will of man, but of God.”