Talk radio host Glenn Beck called into his own program on Tuesday from the road to discuss with his co-hosts the recent death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whose passing Beck gratefully sees as providential in alerting American voters to the necessity of supporting GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz to name Scalia’s replacement.

Beck’s co-host Pat Gray, who was filling in for him, recounted how he questioned God after learning of Scalia’s death. “I don’t know the bigger plan, you know, that the Lord has in mind. But I couldn’t help, but wonder, why? Why now? Why did you have to take Antonin now?” Pat asked.

Calling into the show from Boston, where he was on business, Beck said: “Sitting here looking right now at the Old North Church in Boston — you know, I was listening to you guys, and I just want to say, Pat, I think I have an answer for you on that.”

Beck then recounted his thoughts after hearing the news of Scalia’s passing:

I first thought, “Okay, God, thank you. Thank you for that. And then… I remembered it was exactly the same thing that I felt when [hurricane] Sandy hit. And I remember we were trying to go up and help campaign that weekend for Mitt Romney… And Sandy hit and we couldn’t go up. We couldn’t get any flights up. And then they were walking on the beach like two lovers. And I thought to myself, “Thank you. Thank you, Lord, I appreciate that. What is your plan? So, I don’t want to assume that I know His plan, but I will tell you this. I thought when this happened after I got past the “thank you [to God],” I thought, “You’re welcome. I just woke the American people up. I took them out of the game show moment and woke enough of them up to say, look at how close your liberty is to being lost.”

You now have lost your liberty. You replace one guy and you now have 5-4 decisions in the other direction. Just with this one guy, you’ve lost your liberty, so you’d better elect somebody that is going to put somebody on [the court] because for the next 30 years, if you don’t, the Constitution as you know it, and Pat, you and I have said this for a long time: The Constitution is hanging by a thread. That thread has just been cut and the only way that we survive now is if we have a true Constitutionalist [for president].

Beck then explained a conversation he had with his close friend David Barton of Wallbuilders:

I said, ‘David, have you ever seen this in American history?” And he said, “No, this is the cycle that we’ve always talked about. You go from slavery to enlightenment to freedom to abundance to apathy to slavery again. And he said, “If we’re in apathy, we’re over.” He said, “I don’t think we’re there.” He said, “All indications are that we’re in apathy. But this could wake enough people up.” He said, “The ones who are apathetic are the church.”

And he said, “In Iowa, the exit polls showed that the church did wake up, and the church did come out [to support Cruz], not as many as are claiming to be Christians. There’s still a lot of Christians sitting at home, but Iowa shows that they did wake up. If they wake up in South Carolina, if they wake up in Nevada, if they wake up across the South, then we’re not in apathy, and we don’t go back in slavery. But if the country is lost, it will be lost because of the Christians. There will be no one else to blame. You can’t blame the progressives. You can’t blame the left. You can’t blame Hillary Clinton. You can’t blame anyone else but the Christians who are not living and voting their principles.”

Beck posted a clarification on his Facebook page in response to news reports claiming he said “God killed Scalia to help Ted Cruz.” Beck wrote: “What I did say is ‘perhaps God allowed Scalia to die at this time to wake America up to how close we are to the loss of our freedom’.”

Beck added, “Who [God] wants as president I do not know. What path He wants America to take to best preserve His rights and roles for us, I do not know.”

Listen to the full segment above.