Tallahassee pastor’s tryst in spotlight
A well-known Tallahassee pastor was forced to flee naked after a husband came home early and found him having sex with the man’s wife.
The details of the Jan.17 episode outlined in a police report, combined with Pastor O. Jermaine Simmons’ address to members of his Jacob Chapel congregation about the incident, have been the subject of intense social media and internet buzz.
In an address to his members, Simmons seemed to portray the congregation and himself as the victims.
“I’m hurting because I’ve hurt you,” Simmons said on Sunday, Jan. 22. “I can’t speak to people on the outside. I am not Tallahassee’s pastor. I am not Florida’s pastor. I am Jacob Chapel’s pastor. It hurts me that you have to defend my actions. You cannot defend sin,” he continued to loud applause from the congregation.
The scandal broke during the same week Simmons and the church were celebrating the 11th anniversary of his leadership. He was scheduled to hold a signing of his first book “I Need a Man,” which, according to his website’s description, “offers a fresh perspective on the issues of godly manhood and mentoring.”
Simmons, who is married and has a son, is well known locally for addressing the physical and spiritual needs of college students and the down-trodden. He established a cold night shelter and also organizes the annual Back to School Bash, which collects and distributes backpacks and other school supplies for hundreds of Tallahassee children.
However, his recent actions outside the pulpit have brought him unwanted attention.
According to a Tallahassee Police report, officers went to the Sienna Square apartments on Capital Circle Northeast in the middle of the afternoon of Jan. 17 after a woman called to report that her husband was angry and had a handgun after he encountered his wife and Simmons having sex in the daughter’s bedroom. The man came home early after the school called him to pick up his sick son. The school had tried unsuccessfully to reach the wife.
According to the woman, Simmons came over to discuss starting a business and providing less fortunate kids with clothes and shoes,” but they ended up in bed together. The woman told police she and Simmons began “establishing a relationship” last October.
After the husband interrupted the tryst, he yelled “I’m gonna kill him” and ran to the master bedroom for his handgun; Simmons fled the apartment naked and hid behind a nearby fence.
The wife then called the police and her husband left with Simmons’ clothes, wallet and car keys, which he threatened to drop off at the church. He also threatened to expose Simmons on Facebook.
The wife told police her husband never threatened her and she declined to press charges. Simmons also declined to press charges. State Attorney Jack Campbell, “citing the interests of all involved,” decided against prosecution.
After phone negotiations with police, the husband arranged to return Simmons’ belongings. The husband turned over the handgun to NAACP Tallahassee Branch President Dale Landry.
“My prayers to the families involved and the church and our community,“ said Landry. “May God guide all our hearts and minds as we move through this period.”
Simmons, who has led the independent church since 2005, said he won’t quit.
“What I want from God, I have already received – that’s his forgiveness, ” Simmons said in his address. “What I am asking of our members is your prayers and your forgiveness.”
In response, the congregation stood and applauded for several minutes.
http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2017/01/30/tallahassee-pastors-tryst-spotlight/97135232/
What about reparations? He could thank the husband for not shooting him.
The pastor caught in the act of having adulterous sex with one of his congregation members by her husband, says he won’t quit. He also said, “What I want from God, I have already received — that’s His forgiveness. What I am asking of our members is your prayers and your forgiveness.” You know, there is an illuminating fact hanging out there that shows he is completely wrong! How can that be stated? If you know the Holy Scriptures, it’s easy to make that statement, and PROVE it BY the Scriptures.
First, notice how long ‘the stage for that act of adultery had been in the making’ even if sex had not been consummated between them before the other day. The woman said the two of them had been “establishing a relationship” last October. So it was not a case of a sudden blunder being made! It was premeditated, and had been in the planning stages for four long months!
Under inspiration from the Holy Spirit, what does the Apostle James say about temptation that will come to people? The Holy Spirit laid on his heart to write, “12 God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him. 13 And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and He never tempts anyone else. 14 Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. 15 These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow [be completed, reached maturity with one’s indulgence in it, be accomplished, takes place], it gives birth to death. 16 So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters….. 22 But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.” (James 2:12-16, 22).
Second, an act of also ‘being caught in the passions of adultery’ is related to us by the Apostle John in John 8:1-11. Practically everyone has heard of that story related, however, what is totally missed are the ending words to the woman caught in that act of adultery that Jesus Christ charged her with. In verse 11, after she replied to Jesus’ question asking her if any man had condemned her (i.e., passed sentence and carried out the judgment against her), and He proceeded to give her (1), a reprieve for the moment, and (2), an order (in the original language, it is an emphatic order!) that she was to follow from that day forward as long as she lived. These were the words: “Neither do I (cast sentence on you and carry it out right now either). Go and sin no more.”
As I mentioned above, those last five words are a command! It is an order, an order that is to be kept continuously, where she is to go on with her life, but she is to STOP her sinning ways; to sin NO more, to sin NO LONGER! NOT AT ALL the word means in the original Hebrew. The word translated ‘sin’ is the word that means to miss the moral marks that God has established. She was to stop her sinning ways from that point forward, Period!
Third, read Psalm 51, and the other penitential Psalms written by David. Yes, he committed adultery with Bathsheba. But look at his broken-heart, how utterly shattered it was! Look at how he knew he needed to be cleansed from his horrible sin! Look at how he knew he had to have a morally clean, pure heart created [transformed in himself] because of how fallen his heart had fell that caused him to be guilty of all the steps that he had taken that had led up to that actual sex act!
No, the preacher was and is wrong when he says that he has already received what he wants from God over this act of adultery. To get to the point that it did the other day, he has repeatedly “lied” in order to set the stage for it to occur; he had set forth a planned approach to “steal” the affections of the grieved husbands little ewe lamb (as Nathan the prophet said to David); he exhibited “lust” for the woman’s body and did the exact opposite of the command we have to “love one another with a pure heart”; he “stole” something from that woman, her husband, and their children that they will never be able to get back; he very likely has “destroyed” that marriage and that home — can you imagine what that has done, is doing, and will do to that husband and the images he now has of his wife in the arms of another man with that ‘preacher’s’ manhood in his wife’s womanhood and the two of them in the rollicking interplay of having playful and passionate sex going on between them? Can you imagine what that is doing to that husband of hers?? — no, in all likelihood, he has literally “killed” any and all future joy that husband would have ever enjoyed!
Forgiveness is one thing. But forgiveness comes AFTER there has been repentance and a broken heart. Read the man’s sermon to his congregation. There is no repentance there! None. He’s denying the horror of what he has done! And, instead, he is claiming that he and his congregation are the “victims”. Then, he has the audacity to say, “I’m hurting because I’ve hurt you.”
See? There is no broken heart for what this man has done! All for lust for FORBIDDEN ‘fruit’ that belonged to another man, he chose to risk destroying his ministry, his marriage, the marriage of the woman he was committing adultery with, and destroying the children’s lives, all that hits him in the face, and the enormity of the awful sin he BROUGHT UPON HIMSELF, and “he’s hurting because he has hurt them, his congregation members?
That man needs to read I Corinthians Chapter Six! Particularly, the members of that church need to read that chapter, and as difficult as it may be, the entire congregation should take the steps necessary to put that pastor away from their congregation and PRAY that the man finds true repentance!! If they don’t do that, that man is going to end up ripping that congregation to shreds! Adultery is a soul-damning sin! Read your Bible. Check out Galatians 5:19-25; I Corinthians 6:9,10; Colossians 3:5,6; And then be sure you read Matthew 7:21-23. Besides, tell me, what husband in that church will ever be able to trust that man around his wife?
Due to his own lust and the forbidden hunger for indulging his flesh, Satan wrapped him up tight, didn’t he? The ole devil proved wily and crafty again, didn’t he? And Satan was chortling when the woman’s husband walked in that room! Satan is all about destroying lives, homes, families…. and look how many lives he destroyed through that preacher’s sinful actions? May God have mercy on that man! But if he does not truly repent with godly sorrow, like the Apostle James said, he is just “fooling himself.” Rather, he is letting his real father deceive him, Satan, the devil!