We are in basic agreement on this point. I hope that my response to Rebecca helps explain my understanding on this.
No, all of these things require worthiness as you mentioned. You may still be a Melchizedek priest of record…
It is interesting you brought up the temple because it is very closely realated to what we have been discussing. The Old Testament temples were operated by the Levite priests. Of course animal sacrifice was part of the Law of Moses and is no longer practiced. Here is a Bible scripture that may be interesting to you:
“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” Isaiah 2:2-3 (emphasis added)
That talks of one House, not many (I’m not familiar with the context, but if I was to guess, I would say the Third Temple, which was Christ? Or, what dispensationalists would say, still needs to be built?). My name was struck from the records, I think to the shock of many, after my seemingly-invincible “testimony” (I worked on the genetic analyses to attempt to prove where all the professionals were wrong in claiming no Jew ancestry for American Indians) and somewhat meteoric rise in the LDS Church (trying to get me married to call me to the vacant spot on the Bishop’s Council - as I understand it, no one is “called” that quickly: if anyone is every dying of loneliness and thinks nothing but marriage is the answer, join the LDS church, and ye shall soon be cured). I was a member for under (or just over) a year. I realized soon enough (and it was not rational thought about LDS theology), that my desire to be eventually elevated to the Quorum and the First Presidency, and become exalted, was exactly that which led to the (horrible) Fall of Man.
I apostatized not to Christianity, but back to the strict monotheism of Islam; of which my trials and travails in LDS theology led me to the recognition that the Christian Trinity is truly purely monotheistic and not illogical, which removed (in the formulations of St Aquinas) the main stumbling-block to my acceptance of the truth (I do have to credit the LDS with opening my eyes to the possibility of an incarnation/atoning death of God Incarnate, though: credit where credit is due).
I’m familiar with the BoM, D&C and Peal of Great Price as well, and I challenge you to bring the BoM in to the debate (supposedly the “most correct book on earth”), and be able to prove anything that you can not out of the Bible. The BoM slips in to Modalism in places, but teaches none of the distinctives of the Mormon religion, which were begun only in the latter days of JSJ’s ministry with the King Follett Discourse and some of his later D&C additions, and under the leadership of Brigham Young (JSIII and Emma’s church remained Trinitarian, just a quirky Protestant restorationist group with a supplemental scripture [the BoM]; the Strangites got the additional Book of the Law, and the Bickertonites or some other group claimed to receive additional revelations from JohnBap). The plurality of gods stuff was begun to be taught in the BoA and BoMos.
The problem with ordinances depending on worthiness - what if I decide to be baptized as an LDS, and the man who baptizes me is secretly unworthy? And then I rise through the ranks, and eventually become President, Prophet, and Revelator? Since my baptism was invalid (conducted by me worthily, but by the baptizer unworthily), all of the consecutive offices I have held (since they are all dependent on LDS baptism), I have held invalidly, since my baptism was invalid. That would mean that such a person elevated to the First Presidency would essentially make the LDS church apostate by its own criteria.
That’s the major problem with Donatism the early Church Fathers saw so many millennia ago.