This release of SermonSpeaker will not work with 'magic_quotes_gpc' turned on
Starting with SermonSpeaker 4.4.9, "Magic Quotes" need to be turned off or the installation will fail with the above error message. Magic Quotes is a PHP setting which is usually set in the php.ini file and seldom in the .htaccess file.
It was originally meant as a way to make PHP scripts safer by automatically escape each dangerous special chars. However it turned out to generate more problems than what it solved. So now it is depreceated in PHP 5.x and will be removed in PHP 6.x.
Joomla 3.x decided to make this a requirement and will not work correctly with Magic Quotes enabled. Since SermonSpeaker 4.4.9 is compatible with Joomla 3.x and makes use of part of the code which is incompatible with Magic Quotes, this requirement is now also valid for SermonSpeaker 4.4.9
If your server still has this enabled, you most likely need to contact your hoster and ask him to turn it off. If you have access to the php.ini file or are allowed to use php_flags in your .htaccess file, you can also disable it yourself. The PHP manual explains that very well.
If you can't disable Magic Quotes, Sermonspeaker 4.4.8 will be the latest release you can use.