There’s a fascinating ‘revelation’ in Ezekiel (33:30ff) where God ‘opens the window’ a bit and let’s the prophet look into the hearts of his audience.

As for you, mortal, your people who talk together about you by the walls, and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to a neighbor, “Come and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.” They come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they will not obey them. For flattery is on their lips, but their heart is set on their gain. To them you are like a singer of love songs, one who has a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument; they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes– and come it will!– then they shall know that a prophet has been among them.

Ezekiel is a curiosity. And the audience he draws understands him as such. They chat about him and attend his preachings, not with any interest in doing what it is God says for them to do through him, but because they view him in the same way that they view a traveling minstrel or entertainer. They go to see a show, in other words. But they couldn’t care less as to the content of that ’show’. So, says God, when the warned judgement comes, and it will, they will know just one thing- that God has sent a prophet to them to divulge his will- a will they have ignored utterly.

Preaching, then, is exactly and precisely the act of declaring the intention of God to a people who have as little interest in it as they do in God himself. Their concern is their own gain- not the purpose of God. The preacher gets to know this- and live with it.