If you've just arrived from Mars, you may not know that the New Orleans Saints defeated the Minnesota Vikings last night for the NFC Championship title.  The Saints’ slogan all year has been “Who Dat,” which is shorthand for  the Southern/Creole/Cajun/African American slang “Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints” (Who’s that says they’re going to beat them Saints).  

When I wrote above that the Saints “defeated” the Vikings, I might have exaggerated.  In fact, the Vikings won the game in every way but the one that counts - the score.  Unfortunately for Brett Favre, the incredibly talented quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, the score is all that mattered last night.  The Vikings’ superior performance on both offense and defense didn’t result in a win.  Their season is over.  Favre’s career may be over also.

I’ve tried to be a student of prophecy my entire ministry.  So I’ve been searching the prophets and the Apocalypse of John for some cryptic forecast about an unlucky football franchise in the Mississippi delta of South Louisiana.  For over four decades this team, with the unlikely name of “Saints,” has marched nowhere.  The jazz bands up and down the French Quarter have played “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In” a few hundred thousand times over these 43 years; but the Saints have waddled and stumbled for most of those years.  They performed acceptably a few years.  They even made the playoffs a few times.  Their first playoff win was in 2000.

But they’ve never been to the Super Bowl.  Not ever.  Not even close.   Now they are going to the Super Bowl to play the Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning in two weeks.  I’ve got an idea who “Who Dat” is.  His initials are “PM.”   What do you think?

I digress.  My point was that I was searching for prophetic clues for the soon return of the Lord.  I’ve not found one yet that I can say with absolute certainty points to the return of Christ within the next few years.  He may come tonight, and there is no prophecy that has to be fulfilled before He does.  But no prophecy requires that He come soon.  

So I’m still looking - because a Saints’ victory over Peyton Manning’s Colts for the Super Bowl title would be an event of apocalyptic proportions, in my opinion.  Zionists could capture the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and I wouldn’t give it a second thought.  The Pope could defect to Hinduism and I would not attribute any eschatological significance to the story.  Osama Bin Laden could issue a video on which he apologizes for his terrorism and asks the forgiveness of Americans and Jews for all of his atrocities - and I would not detect anything that looks like fulfilled prophecy in that act.

But if the New Orleans Saints win the Super Bowl in February 2010, I might be inclined to confess that I had missed something hidden in Daniel or Ezekiel or Zechariah or Revelation.  Here’s the imagery I’m looking for.  The enemy comes in on a horse (a Colt - get it?).  The “Saints” have been beaten down, slandered, maligned, and ridiculed.  The battle is bloody.  Blood runs all the way up to the horses’ bridles.  The Saints cannot defeat the superior forces of the enemy riding a colt. . . .

I won’t finish the story.  But you get the idea.  And you understand how residents of Louisiana and New Orleans in particular feel about what happened last night.  What else could the Lord be awaiting to happen before He returns?  Couldn’t this be the trigger that sets in motion that series of shouts and voices and trumps which announce His appearing?  

Forget about the return of the Jews to Israel or the appearance of the Antichrist.  If the New Orleans Saints win the Super Bowl in two weeks, if I were you I’d be looking toward the eastern sky.  The unthinkable would have happened.   Perhaps I should say, the event we’ve been awaiting for over 4 decades would have happened.

The New Orleans Saints - Super Bowl Champs 2010.  Who Dat?

Alan Day, Senior Pastor