Religous but lost

Ken Duggan, Senior Pastor Dallas Bay Church, Hixson, TN who blogs here, has just been to Malta to work on a 5 year agreement with Maltese missionaries. In this post he says that the Maltese are "very religous but lost":

..It has been a few days since I returned with 4 others from Malta. Malta seems to be one of those places everyone has heard of they just don't seem to remember where or why. It has a tremendously interesting history going back thousands of years. There is the oldest free-standing temple in the world on the island that pre-dates Stonehenge by 1,000 years. While there my team attended a festival where the church was celebrating its 600 year anniversary. If you ever saw the movie "Gladiator" it was filmed on Malta. The Grand Harbor is the deepest natural harbor in the world where Allied ships sailed into during WWII..

..The people go so far as to celebrate the sinless life and ascension of Saint Mary, the mother of Jesus. She is so revered our team rejoiced whenever we saw a statue of Jesus higher on the side ot the church than Mary. Some cathedrals were almost devoid of pictures of Jesus while they were filled with icons of Mary. They refer to her as the "Queen of Heaven" and are petitioning Rome to make her "Co-Redemptress" along with Jesus.

It is heartbreaking to see such kind people be so terribly blinded to the truth of God's Word. One lady told us when she converted to Christianity (Yes they differentiate between Catholicism and Christianity) her family dis-owned her. Another said that if she read the Bible for herself she was told by her mother she would go mad.

While I was there I was asked to pray for the people. I did, but God impressed upon me to pray in another way as well. I felt impressed to pray against the forces of darkness. I remembered the words of Paul who said "We do not wrestle against flesh and blood." I prayed against the principalities and powers of darkness that had plunged these wonderful people into a spiritual midnight of the soul. I became keenly aware that the enemy uses different tactics in different cultures according to his schemes.

While we have been lulled into spiritual apathy in America, the Maltese are very religious but lost. Would you join with me and pray against the spiritual powers that have the citizens of Malta cloaked in spiritual darkness? If you ever have the chance to travel with me or other teams traveling to Malta from Dallas Bay over the next several years I hope you will go. I want you to pray for these people as well. What a great victory it would be for the Kingdom if there were many people led out of idolatry into grace by the power of prayer. I'll talk with you soon.