3 Nephi 3

The Lord has warned us against those who call evil good, and good evil. Here is a an example of someone who did just that:

9 And behold, I am Giddianhi; and I am the governor of this the secret society of Gadianton; which society and the works thereof I know to be good; and they are of ancient date and they have been handed down unto us.

The specific activities of this secret society were to plunder, murder, and steal under under the guise of secrecy. The whole group of these people took an oath of secrecy and swore to protect one another and keep one another's secrets. There was nothing good about this society or the things they stood for or did. In fact, this society was as far from good as you could possibly get. It's author was Satan himself. It seems strange that the leader of such a society, knowing full well he was lying, would assert that it was good.

Receiving an epistle like that though would make me personally wish I had a guy like captain Moroni of old at the head of my armies:

11 And now it came to pass when Lachoneus received this epistle he was exceedingly astonished, because of the boldness of Giddianhi demanding the possession of the land of the Nephites, and also of threatening the people and avenging the wrongs of those that had received no wrong, save it were they had wronged themselves by dissenting away unto those wicked and abominable robbers.

Luckily for the Nephites, the man at the helm was Lachoneus, a man who feared the true and living God and not some two-bit hack robber. This is how he responded:

12 ...he did not hearken to the epistle of Giddianhi, the governor of the robbers, but he did cause that his people should cry unto the Lord for strength against the time that the robbers should come down against them.

The first thing he did was turn the people to pray for deliverance to the Lord God Almighty. He really was the only one who could save them at that point.

Governor Lachoneus also brings up another key point related to obtaining answers to our pleas for God's help:

15 Yea, he said unto them: As the Lord liveth, except ye repent of all your iniquities, and cry unto the Lord, ye will in nowise be delivered out of the hands of those Gadianton robbers.

God will help us only as we are clean before Him. The best practice seems to be to build up a long track record of honesty, integrity, obedience, and service to the Lord so that when we find ourselves in need of His assistance, we can easily feel justified in asking for it.