4 When is “the way” ended? It is not ended at the same hour to all. Each several man has his hour when he shall end his “way.” This life is called “the way;” when you have ended this life, you have ended “the way.” We are going on, and the very living is advancing. Unless perhaps ye imagine that time advances, and we stand still! It cannot be. As time advances, we too advance; and years do not come to us, but rather go away. Greatly are men mistaken when they say, “This boy has little good sense yet, but years will come on him, and he will be wise.”
Consider what you say, “Will come on him,” you have said; “I will show that they go away,” whereas you say, “they come on.” And hear how easily I prove it. Let us suppose that we have known the number of his years from his birth; for instance (that we may wish him well) he has to live fourscore years, he is to arrive at old age. Write down fourscore years. One year he has lived; how many have you in the total? How many have you down? Fourscore! Deduct one. He has lived ten; seventy remain.
He has lived twenty; sixty remain. Yet surely, it will be said, they did come; what can this mean? Our years come that they may depart; they come, I say that they may go. For they do not come, that they may abide with us, but as they pass through us, they wear us out, and make us less and less strong. Such is “the way” into which we have come. What then have we to do with that “adversary,” that is, with the word of God? “Agree with him.” For you know not when “the way” may be ended.
When “the way” is ended, there remain “the judge,” and “the officer,” and “the prison.” But if you maintain a good will to “your adversary,” and “agree with him;” instead of a “judge,” shall you find a father, instead of a cruel “officer,” an Angel taking you away into Abraham's bosom, instead of a “prison,” paradise. How rapidly have you changed all things “in the way,” because you have “agreed with your adversary”!
Source: Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament (New Advent)