On October 19^th, at our Wednesday night class at the School of Supernatural ministry we watched a video of a sign God did at Bethel church in Redding the Friday before. Apparently while the community was gathered late at night a cloud of gold dust appeared out of no where in the middle of the congregation and floated around the congregation for a time, leaving many covered in specks of gold dust.

Two videos of it are here.

(CAUTION: This first one is loud as the people are cheering uncontrollably.)

Now before moving on I feel I really should comment on this.

My initial reaction was to dismiss this or wonder if it was fabricated in someway.  I still battle my Western Worldview a lot which denies the spiritual realm completely.  My default reaction to things like this are almost always, “Where is this in the Bible?” and to wonder if this was faked somehow.  When this initial reaction receded I was able to think more clearly about both of these points.

First, it would be impossible to fake this. It is hard to see in the video but it was reported to me that the glory cloud moved and swirled, going up and down over the congregation.  While someone, with bad or good motives, might have thrown gold dust in the air or had some more elaborate scheme to release gold dust into the ventilation system, it would be impossible to make the glory cloud move in such an unorthodox way and disappear and reappear.  Either someone at Bethel has access to nanite cloud technology or this was really from God.

Second, such signs and wonders happen all the time in the Bible. One example that came to mind is the pillar of fire and smoke that led the Israelites through the desert. If God can do this, certainly He can make a little gold dust cloud in a church in Redding.

[Update: This happened again last Sunday right before Bill Johnson was about to preach.  For two hours they just rejoiced in God’s presence and kids tried to eat the gold dust like snowflakes.]

Many people commented that such a sign was further confirmation that we are in the end times.  I would disagree.  While it might be just that, I think that such supernatural signs and wonders are to be relatively normal for followers of Jesus.  It is because the Western Culture is so deeply steeped in rationalism and naturalism that we do not see these things. What happened at Bethel I would suggest then would be more of a return to normal than something incredibly unique.

Then later that night I was able to witness, first hand, another sign from God.

After class I was talking with a fellow student while many others were staying late to pray in our classroom.  Suddenly one visitor and another student ran into where I was from the classroom.  She was crying, scared, excited and happy.  They started just exclaiming “Fresh oil! Fresh oil!”

Apparently, while praying this woman’s hands suddenly became wet with a thin sheen of oil.

Us being us, she began annointing people with it.  As we took pictures, watched, and prayed over the whole situation. We found we could wipe her hands dry, only to have the oil come back just out of her hands.  It also was scentless when it was left on her hands but as soon as she annointed people they could smell it.

These are just two pictures from that night.