Pastor Randy Coggins II, credited by Dr. Peggy Polonis for her spiritual revival during her 2017 "Russian collusion" prosecution—where he urged her to confess sins to Franklin Graham—helped secure her Trump pardon after acquittal. A Pentecostal pastor since age 12, Coggins critiques Pope Francis’ silence on clergy abuse and Islam while praising Samaritan’s Purse, warning prophecies must align with scripture. Polonis, now blending Catholic practices with daily Bible study, contrasts global revivalism with political battles like rural healthcare, framing faith as a counter to systemic chaos. [Automatically generated summary]
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The Stone Zone on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
Welcome back.
You're back in the Stone Zone.
Yesterday in the Stone Zone, I interviewed Callie Means.
His sister, Dr. Casey Means, was appointed Surgeon General of the United States yesterday.
And their book, which is entitled Good Energy, The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health, which I read about two years ago, changed my life in a very big way.
It changed everything about my diet and a lot about my lifestyle.
But the man I want to interview and bring on now changed my life in a far more profound way.
That is my good friend, Pastor Randy Coggins, Randy Coggins II.
Now, Randy and his wife Carrie seem to have a kid every time I turn around.
He's a growing family.
He is an incredibly effective apostle for the Lord.
And back when I was going through the tribulation of the Russian collusion hoax in which I was put through a Soviet-style stroke trial, despite the fact that I had actually done nothing wrong, I was being prosecuted because essentially I refused to bear false witness against my friend of now 50 years, Donald Trump.
It was a very trying time for me and my family.
I admit to you that a time came when I realized that I would not get a fair trial, that I was going to be both unconstitutionally gagged, so I couldn't even defend myself, but also lynched by a hateful judge, a biased jury forewoman, and a rigged D.C. jury.
That's not conjecture, by the way.
That was actually proven.
We learned that the jury forewoman in my trial, who said during jury selection and the trial, she knew nothing about me, never heard of me, wasn't familiar with the case.
In fact, she'd been attacking me and President Trump by name on both her Twitter and her Facebook pages for a full year, 19 months actually, before she was selected as a juror and the jury forewoman in my trial.
But she had those attacks on me by name regarding the very case in which she was selected on a private setting.
So my lawyers in due diligence could not find them.
In any event, a time came when I hit rock bottom.
And it was Pastor Randy Coggins who relentlessly urged me to turn my burden over to the Lord.
It was Pastor Randy Coggins who arranged the meeting with Reverend Franklin Graham that really did change my life.
Up until that time, many, many pastors, priests, rabbis, and other clerics were urging me to change my life, to turn this horrific burden and stress over to the Lord.
But I wasn't feeling it.
I wasn't hearing it.
That was until Randy Coggins set up this fateful meeting with Reverend Franklin Graham.
And of course, I was still thinking politically.
I said, you know, Pastor Graham, I really think that I'm going to be destroyed here, that I'm going to be lynched.
And I wondered if you could put in a good word for me with the president regarding executive clemency, since my lawyers would no longer let me talk to Donald Trump, nor would Donald Trump's lawyers let him talk to me.
And Franklin Graham said, well, I'll see what I can do about that, but let me give you a much better piece of advice.
You need to turn your burden over to the Lord.
You need to confess your sins and get right with God.
And I guarantee you, he said, Randy Coggins was there.
I guarantee you the Lord will lift you up.
He will deliver you from your persecutors.
And then Randy Coggins and I went out into this open field with several thousand other Christians.
And the time came in his ovation, oration, that Pastor Graham said, Reverend Graham said, I don't care whether your problem is alcoholism or gambling addiction or drug addiction or family problems or health problems or financial problems.
If you turn your burden over to the Lord, if you confess your sins, get right with God, the Lord will lift you up.
And those who want to live with our Heavenly Father forever, rise now and along with me, confess your sins and you will be saved.
And in that moment, thanks to the urgings of Randy Coggins and Franklin Graham, I stood in an open field with 200, 300 other Christians.
I confessed my sins and everything in my life changed.
And I was, of course, delivered from my persecutors.
Ultimately, after going through hell in a D.C.-rigged trial.
But when President Donald Trump understood that I was being persecuted and prosecuted simply because of my refusal to lie and bear false witness against him, he accumulated my sentence and later gave me a full and unconditional pardon.
Christmas of 2020.
Pastor Randy Coggins, God bless you and welcome to the Stone Zone.
Roger, thank you so much.
It's an honor to be back.
And I'm grateful to have a small part of what God has done in your life for sure.
So thank you for having me on the Stone Zone today.
I appreciate it.
You know, it's what's amazing to me.
And I've told that story again.
Of course, because we have a limited amount of time here, I gave the shortened version of it, but you were relentless, just relentless in urging me to take refuge in the Lord and turn my burden over to the Lord.
I don't know that I would have ultimately done that, but when I came out publicly and announced that I'd had this change in my life, Washington Monthly mocked me.
I mean, they mocked me, said this is some kind of a head fake.
This is some kind of an act.
This is some kind of a public appeal for sympathy.
So I've said many times, I don't really care what they think.
I only care what he thinks.
And it is a blessing.
You are a blessing.
How many children do you have now?
We have four.
We have four now.
Four children now.
The oldest is nine, and the youngest is one.
And then, but to go back on what you were saying, though, it's amazing how none of this was planned as far as me and you, our connection, relationship, what God's done in your life.
I was sitting in Miami, Florida, at my wife's grandparents' home the morning of when the FBI raided your home.
And at that point, I had never met Roger Stone.
And I watched, I saw the CNN footage, I saw everything, and I said, hey, this is not right.
And I knew from that moment, I felt God spoke to me and said, you need to go after this guy because he needs my help.
And from that moment, we connected in Sarasota and God did the rest.
And so I'm super, super grateful to be a part of the journey with you and Edia and your family for sure.
Well, your wife, Carrie, is also a pastor.
She's a wonderful woman.
You have a beautiful family.
And we consider you family.
I do think that there's a spiritual revival going on in America.
You can see it.
You can feel it.
It transcends politics to say the very least.
Again, I notice that I started, I'm new in my faith journey.
I'm new in my faith walk, but I'm getting more and more familiar with the Bible.
And I used to think it was just some kind of outdated book of fables.
The language was hard to understand.
Now I understand, and I've gotten one of these Bibles that gives you a guide that helps you put the language in more common everyday idiom, makes it more understandable.
But I now realize that the Bible is an incredibly practical book that really addresses virtually any problem or any issue in which you might be curious.
It has really become a very important part of my life.
There's a very good friend who's a pastor in Canada.
I think he gets up at like 5 o'clock in the morning and he picks out one important part of the Bible for me to read that day.
And that's how I start my day every single morning.
And then I still, as a Catholic, I still say the rosary at night.
And there are specific people that I'm praying for who may be going through issues, health issues, or other issues.
So I pray for them.
It's an important part of my life.
If you told me this 15 years ago, I would never, ever have believed it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The word of God is an incredible resource.
And it's something that you said it transcends time.
It transcends politics.
And it's amazing how you can read one passage of scripture one day, but then read it several days later and then something else pops out at you.
So it's an amazing thing.
It's a living thing.
It says in the Bible that the word is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
It never changes.
So it's a powerful, powerful tool.
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Randy, tell us about your family because you come from a long tradition of pastors.
Yeah, my parents, going into my great-grandparents, all Pentecostal preachers, and was raised at a pastor's home.
And I accepted, I felt the call to preach at a very young age.
At the age of 12 years old, I was in a revival service at my father's church in Northeast Georgia.
And I had what I call a super spiritual experience.
And it was at that moment I told God, whatever you want me to do, I'll do.
Whatever you want me to say, I'll say.
And wherever you want me to go, I'll go.
And I always tell people, be very careful when you tell God that because he just might make you do it.
And that is exactly what happened in my life.
I had a semi, if you want to call it semi-normal teenage years, middle school, high school, and all that stuff.
But I knew that there was a call in my life.
And right after high school, I started really digging in to that call, seeking the face of God for my life, and stepped into full-time ministry on the road from 2014 to 2020.
I was an itinerant evangelist and preached 80 to 100 dates a year all across the nation, all across the world, television, radio, different churches, from non-denominational churches to independent churches to all kind of all sides of the aisle there.
And then in 2020, I began pastoring.
And now we are pastoring outside of Atlanta, Georgia, the campus pastor of Seven Springs Church in Lithia Springs, Georgia.
And I'm super excited.
This summer will be my 11th year in full-time ministry.
And God is blessing us during the season.
So super grateful about everything that we've seen in ministry this far.
I cannot tell you how impressed I continue to be with Franklin Graham.
As you know, as a very young man, I met Billy Graham when I was working for President Richard Nixon.
I actually still have an autographed Bible, a signed Bible that Billy Graham gave me then.
And it's right on the bookshelf next to a Bible that Franklin Graham gave me when I was saved more recently.
When you add these to the literally hundreds of Bibles that people have mailed me, that is the truth.
Those are two of my prouded possessions.
He's done amazing, amazing work, particularly the charitable work, particularly when you had these natural disasters in North Carolina.
I mean, again, Franklin Graham is not his father.
He has his own individual style, but he's an extremely effective apostle for the Lord, and he's doing great, great public works.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
His Samaritan's purse is amazing organizations, amazing organizations.
And going back to what you said, though, we are truly in a spiritual revival.
I believe that within our nation, but not just within our nation, but around the world.
We saw just the other day, the Catholic Church, we saw a brand new pope come to light, Pope Leo.
And so we are in very, very interesting times.
And I think not just interesting times, but exciting times.
I believe in the body of Christ as a whole.
Well, as a Catholic, the jury is out on the new Pope.
I'm very hopeful.
I was a critic, in all honesty, of Pope Francis.
I did not like the fact that he brought Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was exposed as a vicious pedophile, back to the Vatican as an advisor.
Clement's Hope for the New Pope00:05:08
I particularly didn't like the fact that Pope Francis reached an accommodation with the Chinese Communist Party that essentially allowed them to veto who could be a bishop or a priest in China.
I think accommodation with evil is evil.
And Chinese communism is one of the most brutal, most evil regimes in the history of man.
I really objected to that.
I also did not like The fact that the church was never critical of radical Islam.
I'm hoping, more importantly, however, that the new Pope will recognize that matters such as the issue of illegal immigration, political matters are outside his responsibilities as the leader of the church.
I mean, as a Catholic, there's a time when the Pope speaks a Catholic, speaks from the throne of Peter.
He speaks in the voice of God.
The other times when he is issuing opinions that, well, and sometimes I think are inappropriate.
This new Pope has criticized President Trump, Vice President Vance.
I don't do not think that is his role.
We're going to be back for more discussion of the new Pope and also this great, I think, religious revival that's happening in America with my good friend Pastor Randy Coggins on the other side.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back in the stone zone.
And we're back in the stone zone.
We're talking to Pastor Randy Coggins.
Randy Coggins is really the real reason that I am redeemed in the blood of the cross.
It changed my life, and I'm proud to call him my friend.
He's almost like he is like a member of my family.
And we're talking about this great revival that I think is going on in America.
A tough question for you, Randy.
And that is, and many Christians disagree about this, but I'm interested in your view on the role of prophecy in the church.
Along with the Bibles given me by Billy Graham and Franklin Graham, I have the personal Bible of Kim Clement.
Kim Clement was a famous Christian prophet, had many, many prophecies that turned out to be eerily accurate.
And I know different people disagree about this, but your view of prophecy in the church.
Yes, the role of prophecy in the church, I believe, as a Pentecostal believer, is still very, very active today.
Something about prophecy is prophecy reveals God's heart and God's intentions.
If you look up the word prophecy, prophecy is simply a divine communication from God to his people.
When we read the word of God, we read that happening numerous times, numerous places, from quote-unquote, God's prophets.
Now, we live in a time where just because someone necessarily calls themselves a prophet doesn't make them a prophet.
That's why God instructs us in the word of God.
You test the words.
You test the words that people give.
You either accept them for what it is or you don't accept it for what it is.
So it reveals his heart, his plans, his purposes.
And in scripture, though, prophecy often served to warn, correct, encourage, and guide.
But one thing about prophecy is prophecy always points to Jesus as well.
Revelation chapter 19, verse 10 says the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
So true biblical prophecy always glorifies Jesus.
It always aligns with his word.
It always leads people towards him, not away from him.
So prophecy builds, encourages, and it strengthens the church.
But prophecy also warns of judgment, a calls of repentance.
It prepares the church as a whole, not just one specific church or one specific denomination or affiliation, but it prepares the church for what's ahead.
But again, like I said, prophecy must be tested and rooted in scripture.
It says in 1st Thessalonians 5, verses 20 through 21, it says, do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all.
Hold on to what is good.
So, or may be powerful or emotional, but it's not prophetic unless it aligns with scripture and it aligns with the character of Christ.
So, that's my two sets on all prophecy.
Well, that was the perfect answer.
Look, I'm a Catholic who believes in prophecy.
I followed Kim Clement.
Kim Clement said the giant would be brought down by a simple stone.
Remember that name.
Now, I want to be clear: I'm not claiming to be a prophet.
I'm not claiming to be a saint.
That's for sure.
I am merely a soldier in God's army, but I will do his will.
And it is only thanks to Pastor Randy Coggins and to Reverend Franklin Graham that I changed my life.
And I'm proud of my belief in Christ.
Hospitals: Lifelines of the Community00:00:53
Rural Americans deserve access to the best our nation has to offer, especially when it comes to health care.
Across every state and every community, America's rural hospitals are the first line of defense, protecting our families, neighbors, and loved ones.
No matter where you live, hospital care doesn't clock out.
They're there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Each year, America's over 5,000 hospitals care for millions of patients, providing 24-7 emergency care, delivering babies, cancer treatments, and other life-saving care that patients rely on.
Behind every one of those patients are doctors, nurses, and caregivers working tirelessly to keep people healthy and safe.
Hospitals are our community's lifelines.
They employ our neighbors and keep our families health.
But now, some in Congress are threatening access to care.
Tell Congress, protect patient care to keep America strong.