He's on a Mission to Help Men, "Man Up.”

VICTOR’S STORY 

“My dad left us before I was born,” says Victor, who went on to have multiple step-dads, attend 14 schools, and live in 17 homes. Tragically, physical and sexual abuse were also a part of his childhood, the worst years being between ages three and seven. Victor remembers “being tied to a bed as a kid, by one of my arms, and then, um …the abuse that came after that.”  

The torture also included being dunked in a bathtub until he passed out, and electrocuted, he says. At age five, Victor was molested and left for dead in a commercial cooler. He’ll never forget cowering in a closet one night with his siblings and mother because his step-dad had come home drunk, with a gun in his hand. He demanded they all come out or he was coming in. Victor’s mom prayed the blood of Jesus over the door, which, at the time, Victor thought to be completely useless. God answered her prayer, prevented her husband from entering, and they escaped through an open window.

By the time Victor finished high school, he was a lost, angry young man using drugs, fighting, and stealing. He joined the Marines to get away from home. During his service, he received a letter from his biological father, which began, “Dear Son.” It infuriated Victor to be called “son” by the man who had failed miserably in being his dad, but he kept reading. His dad had come to faith in Christ, apologized for not being a father to him, asked his forgiveness, and invited him to come visit. Victor decided to go, and even accepted his dad’s invitation to church, where he was deeply touched by the worship, and simple message of the gospel. Victor gave his hurting, angry heart to Jesus, and started the long road of healing.   

INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES  

After three years in the Marine Corps, Victor got out and ran a martial arts school with his wife, Eileen. Some years later, he worked at Focus on the Family as an assistant for James Dobson, who became a mentor to him, and remains a good friend to this day. In 2003, Victor sensed a calling to evangelize and minister to broken youth in prisons, and started All Things Possible Ministries. He saw the lack of good fathers – or fathers at all – to be the biggest problem in the country, and believes the same holds true today. Over the years, Victor and the ministry received some 6,000 letters from incarcerated kids who were helped, encouraged, and came to faith in Christ.  

In 2014, Victor received an invitation from Dave Eubank, Founder of the Free Burma Rangers, to come to Burma and train his staff in weapons use. He was deeply impressed by how Dave included his family in all aspects of his work: living in jungles, doing without western amenities, and together serving those in greatest need.  

Later, in 2015, the pair went to Iraq together to bring aid to victims of ISIS. One night at their operating base in Mosul, Victor noticed a handcuffed Iraqi man sitting on the ground, being guarded by soldiers. When he asked about the man, he was told he was actually a captured ISIS commander, responsible for hundreds, maybe thousands of deaths. That was highly unusual, Victor says, because ISIS soldiers will fight to their death rather than being captured. “By this time, I’d been shot at, mortared, and specifically targeted by ISIS, and I had done my share of returning fire. They knew who I was and hated me.”  

Nonetheless, Victor had a burden to share the gospel with the commander, and asked the base leader if he could speak to him. Victor, an interpreter, his Iraqi bodyguard, and his highly-trained Belgian Malinois, Scout, walked over to where the man was sitting. Victor inquired about the man’s family, gave him water to drink, and asked if he could share with him what he believes happens when we die. The man said yes, so Victor simply explained the gospel, and asked if he’d like Jesus to save him. To his amazement, the man said yes again. “I cannot believe this is happening,” Victor thought. “It’s like a dream come true. I am leading an ISIS commander to Christ before he dies – and, furthermore, I’m not dead myself.”  

He led him through a simple prayer, which the man repeated line by line -- until the end. When Victor said, “In Jesus’ name,” the man began to shake his head “no,” and his face became contorted. Victor describes it as “morphing into a hardened, angular mask within seconds.” Suddenly, the man broke out of his wrist restraints and started to make a move on the small group. Nearby soldiers quickly tackled him, and soon the man’s expression relaxed again. Victor got in his face once more and said, “Do you hear me? Call out to Jesus before you die.” The commander was led away to his death by guards and Victor remains hopeful that he did indeed cry out to Jesus.    
 
BECOMING A “DANGEROUS” MAN

What Victor means by “dangerous” is not what it might seem. “You don’t have to be a hairy, overbearing, loud, controlling guy with all the answers to be dangerous. You get to just be you – the real you, not some made-up version of yourself. Until men come to know God as a father who loves them and has them in his care, they will never be dangerous men,” he explains. Victor poses a question to men today: “Are American Christian men mission-ready?” Victor says that means being prepared physically, emotionally, and spiritually to do what’s right in any situation, and he offers a number of practical tips to that end. 
 
·  BE A DAD 

“The best thing any man can do for his family, society, and the Kingdom of God is to fully embrace his role and responsibility as a father. Being an older brother, a mentor, an uncle, pastor, or boss all falls into the category of ‘fathering.’ Fatherlessness is the biggest problem in America and has led to a host of evils. Men should have stood up and said, ‘No way are we killing off the next generation,’ and stopped abortion from becoming legalized,” he says. “The sexualization of public schools, the promotion of deviant lifestyles, and the charade of same-sex ‘marriage’ all could have been stopped if men had acted like dangerous gentlemen in legislatures, courts, and schools. We have turned into a nation of impotent cowards instead of dangerous gentlemen – and we’re reaping the results.” 
 
·  STAY UNDER AUTHORITY

“All true dangerous gentlemen operate under God’s authority. Period. There is no exception. Mavericks give dangerous gentlemen a bad name. None of us are called to be unaccountable despots in our families, businesses, churches and so on. Jesus modeled submission to authority perfectly – always and only saying and doing things His Father led him to do. Families and societies will only submit to fatherly authority when they see that men are submitted to God.”
 
·  HATE THE RIGHT THINGS

“We also have to hate some things to be dangerous gentlemen. First off, we have to hate sin. The Bible is super clear on this point. We can’t just be annoyed by sin; we must hate it, detest it, have no taste for it, reject it out of hand.” 

Victor shares an example from a business trip he took. He was propositioned by a group of young women in the car next to him, and twice more by women in the hotel where he was staying. In each situation, he made his position crystal-clear, and even prayed with the last woman for salvation. “Gentlemen, we must hate all sin more and more every day, or we’ll never make it through the enemy’s pre-mediated attacks on our marriages, families, character, ministries, and reputations. Hate sin!” he repeats.  

To learn more about Victor Marx, please visit www.VictorMarx.com. To purchase your copy of The Dangerous Gentleman, please visit: www.dangerousgentleman.com.