Glenn Beck broke down again this weekend as he revealed to his congregation of American Revivalists that he may, or may not, go blind in the next year. It was a stirring moment wherein he sobbed as he confessed that, were he to lose his sight, he would miss reading more than seeing his wife or his kids as they grow up. How touching. His family must feel so loved.

I couldn’t help but wonder how this potentially devastating hardship would fit into Beck’s evangelical perspective. While he professed to accepting his fate as the will of God, it seemed to me that he was missing some pretty ominous signs.

Beck claims to be a devout Mormon and Christian. He certainly piles on the sermonizing during his radio and television shows. So he must be familiar with Deuteronomy 28:27-29, and the punishment from God if you fail to follow his laws:

27: The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.
28: The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart.
29: And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways: and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.

Taking these one at a time, verse 27 speaks of being smited with emerods, known today as hemorrhoids. A couple of years ago Beck was not only so smited, but it nearly killed him. He posted a bizarre video of himself recuperating and railing against the private, for-profit health care system under which he suffered.

In verse 28 the Lord warns of being stricken with the blindness that Beck may now be facing. It also warns of madness and astonishment (i.e. confusion, panic). You only need need to watch a few random minutes of any episode of Glenn Beck to see that he is consumed by panic. He freely admits to being confused, and he is quite obviously mad.

Verse 29 very plainly addresses things that could be interpreted to refer to Beck’s professional misfortunes. Certainly he is still a very wealthy man, but having over a hundred advertisers abandon his noonday program surely impacts his prosperity, if not his reputation. And today his most reliable remaining advertiser, Goldline, International, was informed that they are being investigated for fraud. That’s just the tip of the criminal iceberg surrounding Beck’s advertisers.

The only reasonable conclusion is that God has had enough. He is no longer tolerating Beck’s heresy, dishonesty, and arrogance. He is probably not to thrilled with Beck portraying himself in Messianic terms either. However, God may have to be a bit more demonstrative before Beck gets the picture. A few prophecies from Deuteronomy may be sufficient to alert most people to their sinful ways, but let’s face, Beck has been “blind” for a long time. It may require locusts and pillars of salt for him to see the light. His ox may have to be slain. Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to floods, because that could hurt a lot of innocent people.

With the specificity of these Biblical prophecies, the hemorrhoids, the panic, the loss of prosperity, the madness, and now the looming blindness, it would be foolish for Beck and his disciples to dismiss these ominous signs. For it can only mean that God’s wrath is seething and that Beck’s fate is dire. Either that or he’s masturbating too much.