When many think of preaching they think of listening to someone talk. But, is preaching simply a passive event? Preaching can be dangerous because through the ministry of preaching the listener either grows, or their heart is hardened.
When you come to hear preaching, don't come to hear a man, come ready to meet with God as you encounter him through the preaching of his Word. And when God speaks to us, his Word will inevitably have an effect.
Read the words of Isaiah 55:11-12
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. 12 “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
This means that the Word of the Lord will have an effect. The Bible does not become the word of God (as some believe), the Bible is the Word of God, and as the Word of God it stands over us. What kind of effect will the Word have? There was one preacher who knew what kind of effect the ministry of the Word would have - the Apostle Paul.
Here is how he summed it up: 2 Corinthians 2:14-17
14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 17 For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.
There is an inevitable result of preaching: You can either grow or be hardened. If you come week after week and hear the Word of the Lord faithfully preached, and you are not seeing progress in your spiritual life, then don't fall prey into thinking that the faithful preaching of the Word is not having some effect on you. The effect of preaching will either save you or harden you; preaching will either be a sweet smell of the life in Christ, or the fragrance of death.
Listening to preaching is always difficult for the hard hearted, but listening to preaching is a matter of life and death.