Hebrews 4:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Let us labour therefore, &c. That is, since the Israelites were so severely punished for their unbelief, let us labour Greek, σπουδασωμεν, let us be in earnest, use diligence, and make haste, (all which particulars are included in the word,) to enter into that rest By sincerely believing and steadfastly obeying the gospel, aspiring after and striving to attain every branch of holiness, internal and external; lest any man fall Into sin and eternal perdition; after the same example of unbelief By reason of such unbelief as the Israelites gave an example of. The unbelief against which we are here cautioned, as being the cause of men's falling under the wrath of God, is chiefly that kind of it which respects the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the reality and greatness of the joys of heaven, and the miseries of hell; the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, men's sinfulness and guilt, depravity and weakness, and their need of the salvation of the gospel in all its branches, the ability and willingness of Christ to save them from their sins here, and conduct them to the heavenly country hereafter, together with his authority to judge the world, and power to dispense rewards to the righteous, and inflict punishments on the wicked. The unbelief of these great truths, revealed to us in the gospel, being the source of that wickedness which prevails among those called Christians, as well as among Mohammedans and heathen, we ought carefully to cherish a firm and steady belief of these things, lest by the want of a lively sense of them, we be led to live after the manner of the ungodly, and God he provoked to destroy us by the severity of his judgments.