At The Gospel Coalition’s recent conference—an event already bursting with enough theological cotton candy to induce a diabetic coma—David Platt took the stage and, with trembling sincerity, unleashed a tale so drenched in mystical melodrama it could have been ghostwritten by Kat Kerr herself after the pink hair dye fried her brain and a sword-fight with a demon in heaven’s food court.

“I want to tell you a quick story that I’m hesitant to share,” Platt began. A red flag if there ever was one. Nothing good in evangelicalism has ever followed the phrase “I’m hesitant to share this…” That’s usually code for “Brace yourselves, I’m about to traffic in unverifiable emotionalism.”

Without offering details (because, naturally, vagueness is next to godliness in their world), Platt described a “traumatizing” incident in his church a few years ago, allegedly involving someone coming at him physically, the police being called, and—of course—a divine escape hatch heroically used just in time.

The next morning, a woman he didn’t know and who “had no context” received a “picture” of Jesus—fully armored—standing between him and the threat. That vision, Platt insisted, was a supernatural confirmation of Isaiah 59, where God dons righteousness as armor. If that wasn’t wild enough, a few weeks later another woman—also with “no knowledge of the event”—confirmed the entire ordeal with yet another message from God.

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The story was so unhinged from reality it sounded like something Jennifer LeClaire would publish between dispatches about the “sneaky squid spirit” and angel feathers falling in her coffee. In fact, you could easily imagine Francis Chan nodding along solemnly while Kat Kerr, adorned in her usual cotton-candy-colored wig, offers to paint a prophetic mural of Jesus in Roman armor for the church foyer. The whole episode had more in common with the Elijah List than with the apostolic testimony of Scripture.

And yet, Platt wasn’t speaking to an audience of charismaniacs in a stadium revival. He was speaking at TGC25, a supposed “gospel-centered” reformation. But then came the receipts.

The Church Reform Initiative quickly poured water over Platt’s strange fire, revealing that the traumatic “attack” Platt described was nothing more than a woman in a church parking lot, holding a phone—not a sword, a butcher knife, or an AR-15, a phone—asking why Platt had just abruptly left a meeting with her toddler in tow.

That’s it. No threats. No assault. No police. No armor-clad Christ. Just a concerned mother with a camera and a legitimate question. An eyewitness, @Coram_Deo_, who was actually there, confirmed the entire encounter as completely mundane. No danger. No divine intervention. No ghostly reenactment of the book of Isaiah

So what gives?

Why does a pastor—one who speaks before thousands, writes bestsellers, and is regularly platformed by evangelical intelligentsia—feel the need to concoct a spiritual action thriller out of a routine parking lot encounter? Why dress up a mild embarrassment as a divine battleground complete with visions, strangers receiving heavenly intel, and Jesus playing defense like a holy linebacker? Why?

Because emotionalism sells better than honesty. Mysticism garners sympathy. And nothing juices a faltering platform quite like a touch of fabricated persecution and a dollop of divine drama.

Let’s not pretend this is harmless embellishment. This is the exact method the New Apostolic Reformation uses to manipulate the masses… vague threats, unverifiable visions, and third-party “confirmations” by people with no names, no evidence, and no accountability. It’s a magic trick, performed with a pulpit and a Bible verse, to emotionally hijack an audience and baptize self-pity as spiritual warfare.

If this had come from the mouths of Bill Johnson, Mike Bickle, or Kat Kerr, everyone in the Reformed world would laugh it off as another crackpot charismatic fever dream. But because it’s coming from David Platt—the man who once wrote Radical—we’re supposed to treat it with reverence? No. Absolutely not. We don’t get to roll our eyes at the NAR while giving Platt a pass for peddling the same mystical gibberish wrapped in ESV-branded paper.

The credibility of this story is about as sturdy as a Joel Osteen sermon outline. And the fact that Platt uses it to position himself as some kind of embattled martyr surrounded by prophetic encouragers should cause every thinking Christian to question just how far down the manipulative rabbit hole he’s willing to tumble.

Armor? Visions? Random strangers delivering cryptic messages from the Lord? This isn’t the fruit of the Spirit. This is the fungus of charismatic delusion growing in the dark corners of unchecked ego.

And just like that, The Gospel Coalition once again proves that its gatekeepers are asleep at the wheel—or worse, enjoying the ride.