You Are Made to Come Out From Among Them! with Todd Coconato

0:00 Hello everyone and welcome to The Strang Report. I'm Stephen Strang and today I am excited to interview Todd Coconado who is both a friend and also a new author. He's written a book that I have the privilege of publishing. It's called Come Out From Among Them. And I'm not exactly objective about this book because I helped to recruit Todd as an author and felt that he has something very important to say and I'm glad to share that on my podcast today and to learn more about why he wrote this book and why you want to read it. I mean, isn't that why we write books? In fact, you can learn from people that you never know, even people that have gone on to heaven, by reading their books. And I personally read a book a week on average. I'm in the process of reading this book now because I think it's so important. But I wanted to just share some insights with him. So first of all, let me welcome Todd. I wish I had a teleprompter with all of your accolades. You have an organization called Remnant. You have a podcast called The Todd Coconado Show. In fact, I first met

1:30 you when I did a podcast with you at National Religious Broadcasters a number of years ago. And then over the years we've become friends. You moved to Nashville, started at church. I've heard really good things about the church, even though I haven't had a chance to attend. Someday when you least suspect it, you'll see me on the back row. We definitely want you to come. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you. And thank you for fitting this podcast on fairly short notice. So the subtitle says, Why you were made for such a time as this? Why did you write the book? And then I want to ask you about the angelic visitation that you had that was a part of your writing the book. Thank you, Steve. Well, first of all, it's great to be here. And I just appreciate you having me on today and talking about this.

2:20 It's an honor to be part of the Charisma family writing this book. And I'll tell you, this book is a supplement. I really am very strong on Christians reading the word of God. The Bible says faith comes from hearing the word of God. In this insane time that we're in with so many different things going on in the world, we've got to be rooted. We can't be illiterate biblically. And so this book is a supplement to that. And I believe God's given me a strategy for this hour where we can not only survive, but we can thrive. But it takes us coming out of this Babylon system. That's what I call it. It's the system of the world. The Bible says to be in it, but not of it. And we are citizens of heaven. And so a big portion of how the enemy gets us in discouragement, worry, anxiety, fear, doubt, all those things is because we as believers don't know our identity in Christ, who we are, what we're able to accomplish that, you know, many times in the scripture there were powerful men of God. Think of Daniel and so many other examples where people were in a land where it was foreign or they were taken captive or things were happening, but yet they were still thriving and about the business of God. And so I believe that God is raising up a generation of believers right now. I call them Davids and Esthers, but people that were made for this time. And it's a warrior class. It's lions and generals. It's people that are bold, that have a purpose and that are meant to really push back against this demonic agenda that we see from the World Economic Forum, the globalists, the elites, many of the things that we've discussed in the past. And so it's a great time to be alive.

3:53 It's literally the church's greatest hour. I believe we're on the cusp of the greatest awakening, greatest move of God in our history before the Lord returns. But there's many challenges and so this book kind of helps show the strategy on how to be effective in this time. Well, that's exciting and it's very needed. And when we became aware that that was sort of the thrust of your ministry, we said that is a message that needs to be articulated in a book. And so I need the viewers to go on Amazon or to go to your Christian bookstore or wherever books are sold and get a copy and share it with others because we need to get this message out. So let's start about this angelic visitation. Not very many people have angelic visitation. So tell me about yours and what happened.

4:39 Well, and I'll just start by saying this. In almost every case in the scripture, when there was somebody that was visited by an angelic visitation, the first thing that they did was they were fearful. And that's actually what happened to me is I was very fearful. I was in bed at the time. My daughter was really little. Now she sleeps in her own bed. But at the time she was in our bed. And so I'm a wife, my daughter, it's the middle of the night, something about three AM. I don't know what it is, but it was around that time. And all of a sudden I look and at the edge of my bed, there's this massive angelic being. And so I was paralyzed with fear. I was afraid of what is this? And then I realized there was a piece that came on me. I believe it was the Holy Spirit. And just let me know, this is of me. This is not a demon. It's not something evil. This is of the Lord. So I still can't make whether I was awake or asleep. If it was asleep, it was the realest dream I've ever had. I do believe I was awake, but it was literally in the middle of sleeping and it just shook me. And so, and it was in my room, there's at my bed. Somebody asked me how tall do I think the angel was? I don't know, maybe 10 feet tall or so. But really what you're focused on at that very moment is just what is happening, what's going on.

5:51 That's all you could really think about. And so the angel, the angelic being said two things to me. I said, come out from among them and said, be consecrated, come out from among them and be consecrated as, as fast as this happened, he was gone. That was it. And then, and so that's where I was like, okay, did this just happen? Was I sleeping? Was I dreaming? What just happened? You know, but I knew it was of the Lord because it wasn't, even if it was a dream, it wasn't like a normal dream. I mean, this was something that was completely awe inspiring. You know, I knew that God had met me at that very moment and I knew that that message was of the Lord. And so I got out of my bed. I walked into the room where I pray. I called my upper room, went over there and I was pacing Steve just for several hours and praying and speaking at times, just asking the Lord what just happened. And so I didn't go back to sleep that night. And I pondered on this visitation for literally months and here's the thing. I'm a pastor. I've been in the Lord for a long time. If you think about what the angelic being said, said, come out from among them, be consecrated.

6:49 Well, my first thought is, am I not consecrated? What am I doing? That's wrong. You know, so I started analyzing my life. I started asking the Lord, inquiring of the Holy Spirit. And as I did this, God just began to peel away layers that I didn't even know were there. Well, give us some examples and also explain exactly what these two phrases meant to you at that time and what they mean in the book. Sure. So at that time, I think I was in a period of trying to figure it out, but I think over the course of the last two years, the Lord has really defined exactly what he was saying to me and why that was so important. So come out from among them. Of course, we know the scripture that says that and the whole book is basically based on that. But what it is, is it's separating ourselves.

7:34 It's consecrating ourselves, being set apart, walking in holiness. You know, holiness used to be a big deal, especially in the charismatic church. You don't hear about holiness as much anymore. You don't hear about purity. Let's go back even farther than that. In the late 1800s, there was a movement called the holiness movement. That's right. There are a few churches that still use that terminology. Pentecostal holiness is the name of a Pentecostal denomination. And there are a few other examples. And the Pentecostal movement at Azusa Street really kind of grew out of that. So historically, you know, there's been an emphasis on holiness.

8:16 We could go back through history, you know, all the way back to the early church, of course. But you're right. In more modern times, we don't hear the term. It's considered old fashioned. Some people may attach legalism to it because often the holiness people, in an attempt to do what was right, at least in their own eyes, would attach a lot of rules that they defined as holiness. And often it had to do with clothing or sometimes behaviors like, you know, smoking or drinking, not smoking or drinking, those kinds of things. But anyway, get back to what you're saying. I just wanted to clarify that holiness is something that needs, in my opinion, to be emphasized again.

9:05 Yes. And I agree. And thank you for sharing that history because I think that's really important that everybody listening understands. And so there's times like in the shepherding movement and different movements that have happened over the course of church history where things have been over-enunciated. That's not what we're talking about in this case. We're talking about actual holiness in accordance to the scripture. You think about the scriptures, be holy for I am holy. You know, like I said, being set apart, consecrated, being a Nazarite. But what this means to me is, and let me just go through the first layer because this is something that God really started showing me, was alignments. You know, who was I yoking with and were there areas of leaven in my life? In other words, a little leaven, leaven's the whole lump. Are there areas, are there things that I was participating in that I was exposing my members to that I was involved in that were fleshly and that were hindering the move of God in my life, the anointing and just really opening doors. And so the Lord started peeling away these layers and I started realizing there was things that I didn't even realize. And I think that God is willing at any moment in the believer's life if we inquire of the Holy Spirit and we ask these types of questions, we say, Lord, you know, cause we're, we're in today's culture, Steve, I know you see this, everybody's point with what everybody else is doing. You know, everybody's, you know, there's a lot of heresy hunters out there. There's a lot of people, they'll probably make a video about this broadcast.

10:24 They do this all the time and they take sound bites and different things. So a lot of people are looking at the, you know, the plank or the speck in somebody else's eye and they're not really looking at the plank in their own. And so this is what I think the Lord is wanting us to do is revival starts in our heart. And we know, look, I'm a supporter of Donald Trump. I got active in politics as many other leaders in my circle did, but ultimately we know that this country needs a great awakening. We need a move of God. That is the only answer. It's not just this country, it's our world. And so as we see things escalating, as we see the birth pains increasing, and I believe that's the period of time we're in and, and things are, I mean, you look at the wars and rumors of wars and what's happening in the middle East, what's happened Eastern Europe, you know, all over the world, destabilization.

11:09 There's a whole bunch of violence and protests and just all that cycle is happening right now. So as this happened, how does the Christian, how do we not only survive, but how do we do what we're meant to do in the scripture? And this is where we can have these open doors in our life. And so to your point, the church in the Western culture and in America has had such a seeker friendly model, you're barely, barely even talking about sin, uh, barely addressing sin. In fact, I know a lot of folks that are many churches that if their pastor literally went to them and started addressing areas of sin, a lot of them would probably leave an offense cause they're not used to it. And so this is unfortunately the culture that's been developed. I believe God is restoring the foundations. He wants us to return our first love and to get back to the word of God because the word of God is everything.

11:56 I mean, it's a lamp unto our feet. It's, it's, it's how we have faith. Faith comes from hearing the word of God. So this is, this is this, this path that the Lord started taking me on alignments, uh, you know, looking into what holiness actually means, consecrating myself, my family, our church, uh, just getting rid of things that we shouldn't have been involved in. I do believe that God is shaking up the church and, um, if so, uh, how is that happening? And do you think that that'll really bring people back to him? I think it's happening and I think we haven't seen nothing yet. I hate to say it, but we know the judgment comes first to the house of the Lord. And so we talk about revival. We talk about a great move of God, but in order for these things to happen, there has to be a right set of what's been off and what's been wrong. And so there's been many people that are, uh, their motives are not pure. Let's just say that, or, you know, it's become a business or it's become, you know, and I believe some of these people started off in the right place and, you know, we all have to die to our flesh daily and have mentors and accountability and people in our lives that keep us on track. And I, you know, you're, you're very strong in saying those things and I appreciate that. And, you know, we're friends as well. And so, but the thing is, is that, uh, this is very important. I believe that we've gotten off course in all these areas, you know, what's the great commission thing, go and make disciples, be a soul winner. Yet that's the one area we probably haven't done that good in, in America. If you think about, I'm here in Nashville, it's in the South and there's, there's like a church on every corner. It's like a Starbucks. I mean,

13:26 it's like a coffee shop. There's literally a church in every corner. But yeah, with all the churches, you would think we'd be impacting the community. You think that we'd be, you know, we would think that we'd be making a major change. And there are some great churches. I'm not bashing all the churches. I'm part of the body. But what I'm saying is if that were the case, if we were effective in soul winning and what we were doing, uh, Broadway downtown wouldn't be packed with people getting drunk every night. There wouldn't be people in despair all over the city. There wouldn't be, uh, continued poverty and all the different things that we're seeing that are happening in our big cities. And so something's been wrong, Steve. And I think that's why God is calling his church, his Ecclesia in this hour, those with the ears to hear to understand, we've got to know what the scripture says because the Lord says, if you love me, you'll obey my commands. Right? So that's what he wants us to do.

14:12 Well, you referred to standing up to the culture and you know, the different things you've been talking about. How do you think that can happen? What are some steps that people can take that you go into in the book to show the reader what to do? Yeah, there's a, there's a shaking that's happening with the awakening. And one of the things that we have to do, I really believe a good portion of this starts in the pulpits in America. We've got to preach the entirety of the word of God. You know, we've seen whole denominations, very unfortunate embracing some of the LGBTQ agenda, some of the woke agenda. That is demonic and we have to call a spade a spade. And I think a lot of people have been fearful that people are going to leave or maybe the tides are going to go down.

14:56 I mean, I'm just speaking bluntly as a pastor, but I really believe that what we have to remember is we're going to be standing before the Lord one day and that's the most important thing. And so we have to please the Lord. We have to speak to that audience of one and we have to call out sin and many, many pulpits are not calling out these major things that are happening. Look at the gender situation with the young people in the curriculums. And I mean, how, how evil does it have to get for us to speak out? How evil does it have to get for the church to get angry, to get involved in a righteous manner? And so I just really, sometimes I ask myself, I know you do as well. Many of your listeners do, and so I believe one of the main things is we've got to preach and teach the full Bible.

15:37 We got to call out sin. Why not have altar calls again? Why not, why not open our churches and have solemn assemblies and prayer gatherings and fast, you know, call a fast for our nation. Repentance is another major word and action that we're not really talking about. And yet it's so important to the Lord. And so I believe we got to, we got to preach and teach repentance and, and have a heart for holiness, you know? And so this is all what we're talking about in this book and it lays out a different strategy. I'll just give you some examples. Chapter two is separating from the Babylon system. Chapter three, I go through the plan of the elites and there is a plan of the elites. I mean, we're moving right now towards a one world global government structure. They have a plan to initiate a digital currency. That's a real, that's not conspiracy. That's actually happening. You know, there's all different types of things that are in motion. And if you look at them individually, it might not be so scary, but if you look at it from a collective standpoint and all the different data points, we are moving towards the beast system very fast. We're, we're seeing things happening in biblical prophecy right before our eyes. And so I just think, uh, this isn't a time to be messing around. Uh, it's certainly not a time for business as usual, but here's the good news is we have the authority in Jesus Christ to pull down the strongholds.

16:51 We have all the tools that we need to effectively push back and win. We're on the winning team. And I will just say this, there's a lot of Christians that are walking around right now, tired, beat down, depressed, anxiety. I hear it every day, Steve, everywhere we go and speak, uh, this is a common theme. And I really believe the Lord wants to teach us to renew our strength, to encourage ourselves in Christ and to know what we actually can do. And that's what's laid out in this book. What do you think is the most important takeaway that a reader would get? Because a lot of people would resonate with what they're hearing you say. They probably wouldn't be watching right now if they didn't agree to some extent. A lot of people kind of think that it's a, you know, the cliche is it's above my pay grade or it applies to someone else. Or I've sort of been there, done that in terms of knowing that this is a problem. I mean, people were concerned in the eighties and nineties and two thousands about the march toward a one world government and, and with all the different manipulations of the currencies and the stock markets and everything else. So what makes your book different that will help people do something significant and, and move the needle in their own lives and in the world and in the world that they live in?

18:12 Such a great question. Uh, let me, let me answer it this way. What, what the book will do is not focus on the negative, but allow us to understand how we can be achieving what we're called to do, our purpose and the authority that we have to do that. And the anointing of the Holy spirit that's upon us when we're walking in consecration, purity, holiness, when we have the heart for the Lord. And so this is the problem is that for many years, the church was asleep. I think we all can kind of agree on that. And then what happened is when the awakening started, a lot of people started listening to a lot of these videos and alternative media, some voices, very solid other voices that rose themselves up. I don't think they were, uh, you know, raised up by God. And so the problem is you have to have discernment to differentiate that you have to know the scripture. Otherwise you can be deceived. And so a lot of folks are deceived. A lot of people are caught up in what I call the doom and gloom train. And here's the problem with that. If you're on the doom and gloom train and all you think, you know, we're going to get rapture out here any minute, there's nothing I can do. That's exactly what the enemy wants us to think. That's his goal is to, is to make the church feel like we can't do anything. We're defeated. We're done. That is total life from the pit of hell. God says occupy until he comes. He says he's with us until the end of the age. He'll never leave us. He'll never forsake us. And so we, we can be taking territory right now. There are so many hungry people out there. I can tell you this beyond a shadow of a doubt. Last three years that we've been going around the country, I've never seen lines so long of hungry people. There is a massive harvest in every city right now of people that are looking for answers. We can go out to the

19:45 supermarket, the coffee shop, wherever you go in your daily activities. And there will be somebody that wants to hear the message of the gospel. And so it is not a time to bury our heads. It's not a time to retract or to build a bunker somewhere. It's a time to get out there and you know, the Greek word at Bala, which is go, go out, cast out and drive out. That's what we need to be doing effectively right now is being the church, the body of Christ is meant to go out, to cast out and to drive out the forces of darkness. And that's why it's not a political solution. It is a spiritual matter. It's a spiritual war. And so I believe in this book. I mean, we talk about chapter eight, our identity in Jesus Christ. Very important. We get into that in depth. Chapter nine is about the anointing, the anointing of the Holy Spirit. You know, it's the anointing that destroys the yoke of bondage. What are we dealing with? Bondage. Everybody's in bondage. Not everybody, but a good portion of our country is in bondage. And so we have the authority in Jesus' name and by the power of the Holy Spirit to show people how to break those chains and have deliverance and healing and all the things that a lot of people have been afraid to talk about, Steve.

20:52 Let's do a deep dive on anointing. You know, there's it's a word that's in the Bible. We think of it as Old Testament, you know, where they would pour oil and it would drip down Aaron's beard. Remember that? So tell someone who maybe didn't grow up in the church or isn't used to all these words that we use in Christian circles. What is the anointing and how does that break the yoke? Yes. Very, very important, especially if you're a new believer, because I remember I had the same question and basically let me just break it down the simplest of terms. When you're walking with God and you invite his presence in his Holy Spirit, you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, his Holy Spirit comes and lives in your heart. And so literally we have the Holy Spirit living in our heart. The body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. That's our body. We are the body of Christ. And so when someone lives in a way that pleases the Lord, we actually, we're not just hearers of the word, we're doers. So we're people of action.

21:51 We're literally doing what the Bible tells us to do. When you do this, what happens is there's an anointing of the Holy Spirit that God puts different talents and gifts and a calling and a passion and a fire in you. And as you guard that anointing and you do the things that we've talked about in today's broadcast where you don't allow areas of compromise. You're not involved in repetitive sin. You're not yoking with unbelievers. You're not allowing areas of darkness in your life. You're guarding your life. You're guarding your family. You're guarding the ministry that the Lord has given you. I believe, because I've experienced this, I think you would agree with this Steve, is that the anointing increases. And as you're about the business of the Lord, when you shift the focus from being like for in my life, God focused to God focused. If I wake up every morning, instead of saying what God can do for me that day, I say, what can I do for God? How can I go out and make disciples?

22:42 How can I go and be about the business of the Lord? What happens is the anointing comes. And so this is the crazy thing. I've been in a 7-11. I've been in a 7-11 and we were at NRB in Texas and the anointing was on me and my friend and there was a woman that had a headache. And we got to the front of the counter and I said, I don't know why, but the Holy Spirit's telling me I need to pray for you. And she says, oh my gosh, I have the worst migraine ever. I've taken a bunch of pills. Nothing's happened. I said, let me pray for you. So right there and then my friend and I started praying and the anointing of the Holy Spirit hit this lady in the 7-11. All the people in line, I'm not even kidding, the whole atmosphere shifted in that place. People were weeping. It was like a meeting that we had right there in that line. And the woman said instantly she was healed. She says, oh my gosh, it's gone. It's gone. So then the witness to the other people in the line, next thing you know, we're praying for the people down the line. This can happen anywhere, any day. I know it sounds crazy, but we've gotten the mentality that it's got to be in a church setting. We've got to be on a mountain top somewhere. No, it can happen in a supermarket. It happened in a Walmart, wherever you're at. God wants to meet you.

23:49 And when you carry the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the Lord is guiding your path and ordering your steps and giving you an unction as you go, this is what happens, Steve. Wow, that's great. And we only have a few minutes left, but I want to find out the reaction you've gotten to this book come out from among them. It's been out now only a couple of months, but you've done media. You're talking about it on your own podcast. Before we're done, I want you to tell people how they can connect with you and your ministry there in Nashville. But what response are you getting from people? Tell me some stories. Yeah. You know, as we go around different churches and conferences, people come up to me and they say, thank you for writing this book because this has been what's been on my heart. Or I've had certain areas of the book where the Lord has been speaking to me, but this kind of colored in the, you know, the other areas, the other lines that I didn't quite know. Um, you know, a lot of people are just saying, I wish that this is what I hear the most is I wish that pastors would preach about these things. And that's what kind of hurts my heart because I know there are pastors out there and you may be a pastor that's watching this and you are preaching and teaching the entirety of the Bible. But it's become a reality that I realized this is definitely the case because it's just too many people saying it is that, you know, there's not enough people covering this. And so I believe God is giving us more time right now. One more round, if you will, even though we really don't deserve it as a nation, as a body of Christ, we need to repent, we need to turn back to him. But I believe this time is for two things. It's one, it's to save

25:19 more souls. It's for the harvest because there are many people that are still going to come to know Jesus. But I think the other side of this, Steve, is that God wants to prepare his church. He wants us to have the tenacity, the stick to it, and this, the forward to it. He wants us to be able to be lasting and not when, when things get tougher, he doesn't want us to just fall. You know, like the, the three little pigs, you don't want us to be the house of straw. We need to be built on the solid foundation. We need to be built on the solid rock and our mind, body, and spirit. We all need to be in sync with the, the word of the Lord and what God would have us to do so that when the trials come, when the tests come, we know how to renew our strength. We know this is what the scripture said, but we're going to be okay because the Lord is with us and he's going to give us the understanding of how to navigate it. And I believe even this next year, I think it's going to be quite bumpy, but I believe there's going to be many people that are going to walk into the fullness of their calling. And as they walk in faith and do that, it's going to be a lot of no-name people. A lot of people that have been hidden, I believe that God is raising up for such a time as this. And so I would just say, you know, trust the Lord with all your heart, have an active prayer life, be in his word, encourage yourself in Christ. But that's what I think is happening. And this is the type of feedback that we get everywhere we go as people say, thank you. This is a message that needs to be spoke.

26:37 Wow. Well, that's so well said, but as we wrap this up, tell people how to get hold of you and also explain to them once again, why they need to stop what they're doing right now. Go to Amazon or wherever they buy books online or get in their car and drive to a store and buy this book and share it with others. Yes. Amen. Well, you can go to pastor Todd.org pastor T O D D dot org. That's my website. The book is available there, but like Steve said, you go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble and all you gotta do is put in Todd, coconutto come out from among them and you'll see all the different places it's for sale. Of course you can go to my charisma as well. But let me just say this, this, this, if you're wives will get this. Okay. But I try to put things together without the instruction manual, Steve and I, sometimes it's a bad scene. Let me just tell you. So what this is, is this is a strategy. This is a strategy. This is a way that it's a supplement to the word of God. Of course, I always say go to the word of God first, make sure you're in the word of God. But if you have some time to read a book, I think this would be helpful because it's a strategy and an instruction manager, a manual, and it's going to set you up for success, especially where we are and where we're about to go. Well, thank you. And I appreciate you coming on my podcast. If people haven't subscribed to the string report, uh, hit the subscribe, hit the little bell. So you're notified when we're live every Tuesday and Thursday at four PM Eastern time and share this with others. You know, the way the podcast get out is people

28:13 either search, uh, for a name or people send them a link. So let's send links so people don't have to search for Todd coconutto to hear this podcast and let's make this thing go viral. This is something that people need to read. Thank you for tuning in today to the string report. Tune in again for another episode. God bless you.