‘We have no portion in David,
Nor do we have inheritance in the son of Jesse;
Every man to his tents, O Israel!’
So all the men of Israel withdrew from following David and followed Sheba the son of Bichri; but the men of Judah remained steadfast to their king, from the Jordan even to Jerusalem.”
—2 Samuel 20:1-2 (NASB)
The definition of a “worthless fellow” is someone who has completely rejected God’s Law and lives according to his own. Sheba isn’t trying to convince others of an alternate interpretation or opinion—he is calling into question the whole of God’s commandments and encouraging everyone to go back to their own place to undertake following their own will and ways. Sheba gives the illusion of being a respectable authority who facilitates the obliteration of God’s ways, paving the way for each individual to do whatever seems right in their own eyes.
Throughout the entire history of the church to this very day there have arisen many in the likeness of Sheba. They sound an alarm, grab attention, and then proceed to relegate God’s Word to a place of non-importance if not making it vanish outright. They often start by reinterpreting the truth (“we have no portion in David” is a lie), redefine terms to their liking (“son of Jesse” is a way of denying David’s anointing by God and calling it man-made), then lead those who would follow on a path further and further away from God and the truth (“every man to his tents” is the abandonment of God’s ways for one’s own).
Beware of those who treat God’s Word so as to discredit it, redefine it, or replace it altogether with something or someone else. Just as Israel “withdrew from following David and followed Sheba”, so such false teaching causes one to witdraw from Christ to follow that false teacher. We need to measure the quality of our leaders by their adherance to His Word in order to maintain the right course, which should ever lead closer to Christ regardless of the circumstances. We really need to understand who are graduates of the school of David versus the school of Sheba.†††